Xena: Green Warrior Princess?

Lucy Lawless Arrested For Protesting Oil Drilling

Environment – Television Actress Lucy Lawless was arrested after she joined a group of Greenpeace activists as they attempted to stop the 174-foot Noble Discoverer, an oil-drilling ship, docked in Port Taranaki in New Zealand from setting sail. The ship, which was chartered by Shell oil company had been due to depart for the Artic over the weekend to “drill five exploratory wells.”

The group climbed aboard the ship on Friday and spent four days protesting in an “attempt to raise awareness about oil drilling in the Arctic” before Lawless and the five environmental activists were arrested.

Lawless, 43, former star of Xena: Warrior Princess and native New Zealander told the Associated Press that she was “compelled to take a stand against oil-drilling in the Arctic and against global warming.”

“I’ve got three kids. My sole biological reason for being on this planet is to ensure that they can flourish, and they can’t do that in a filthy, degraded environment,” she said. “We need to stand up while we still can.”

Rob Jager, Chairman of Shell New Zealand, said the protest “put people in danger,” and that he is “disappointed that Greenpeace hadn’t taken up the company’s offer to engage in a ‘productive conversation.’”

Although Bunny McDiarmid, chief executive of Greenpeace New Zealand, said that the protest was successful and “more than 100,000 people had sent messages to Shell to oppose the company’s Arctic plans,” a Shell spokesman has indicated that the ship will “leave the port within the next few days.”

Read more at the Associated Press.