Christina Persico/STUFF
Protesters outside OMV’s New Plymouth offices in 2019. It has since turned out the protesters were monitored by private investigators. (file video)
The private investigation into school children peacefully protesting oil and gas drilling in New Plymouth has been labelled ‘despicable’ and ‘totally immoral’ by climate activists. But for one protester, who was just 15 at the time, the news has not come as a shock.
Christina Persico/Stuff/Stuff
Schools Strike 4 Climate activists at a protest outside OMV New Plymouth in 2019 are among the people who were investigated by firm Thompson and Clarke for the oil and gas industry. (File photo)
School children from the group School Strike 4 Climate joined a peaceful protest against the oil-exploration company OMV in New Plymouth a year ago, only weeks after unprecedented numbers joined their 27 September school strike marches around New Zealand. Public concern about climate change had never been so great. These were peaceful, democratic protests.
But a two-year investigation has found that they and other climate change groups were targets of the private investigation firm Thompson and Clark, paid by clients from the oil and gas industry.
The investigation reveals that a major focus of Thompson and Clark in 2019 and 2020 – years of storms, floods, forest fires and marching school children – was monitoring and helping to counter citizen groups concerned about climate change.
School children targeted by private investigators Thompson and Clark
22 Apr, 2021 12:21 AM
9 minutes to read
A two-year investigation reveals that climate change groups were targets of private investigators Thompson and Clark, paid by clients from the oil and gas industry. Photo / Peter de Graaf
A two-year investigation reveals that climate change groups were targets of private investigators Thompson and Clark, paid by clients from the oil and gas industry. Photo / Peter de Graaf
RNZ
By Nicky Hager for RNZ
School children from the group School Strike 4 Climate joined a peaceful protest against the oil-exploration company OMV in New Plymouth a year ago, only weeks after unprecedented numbers joined their September 27 school strike marches around New Zealand. Public concern about climate change had never been so great. These were peaceful, democratic protests.
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