Greenpeace - against dangerous climate change
Following intense debate in the Scottish, English and St Kildan parliaments the UK government revoked licenses for oil exploration West of the Hebrides and declared the area a renewable energy reserve. Wave power companies started competing for new licenses to the area, considered to have the best wave resource in Europe. The island's population of seabirds and soay sheep continued to thrive. The island's pub - the Puff Inn asks visiting yachtsmen to sign a petition in support of greater protection of the Great Barrier Reef, now that St. Kilda is held up as one of the best protected natural heritage sites in the world.
Despite widespread public concern the UK Government continued to license oil exploration and development in the Atlantic Frontier as production in the North Sea plummeted. On a clear night oil flares can now be seen ringing the horizon around the islands. The first oil spill to hit St Kilda hit the North Shore in early 2000 after an exploration rig had a blow out. A big spill hit five years later when a shuttle tanker from the same field hit rocks off the St Kildan Island of Soay. The United Nations took St Kilda off the List of World Heritage Sites in the early 2020's considering the degradation of the island to have been so great that it no longer merited the title.
