{"id":5644,"date":"2023-09-14T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T07:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=5644"},"modified":"2023-09-14T10:47:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T09:47:51","slug":"the-blink-of-a-cow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/the-blink-of-a-cow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blink of a Cow<\/span>Nicholas Jubber<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Behind us the castle: the ragged keep rises from the scarp like a giant\u2019s stumpy tooth. Nearly every day I pass this magnificent pile, but its magic never pales: the way it nestles on the hilltop of Corfe, ringed in fortifications of \u2018burr\u2019 stone and the broken circle of its defences. It\u2019s the magic of a monster defanged, a once remorseless bully designed to illustrate the power it enacted. Swipe away romantic illusions about castles – Corfe\u2019s significance in history wasn\u2019t as a setting for jousts or royal banquets, but as an out-of-the-way prison for pretenders to the crown, and the setting for two notable sieges during the Anarchy of the twelfth century and the Civil War of the seventeenth. But one thing to be said for it – at least the castle didn\u2019t hide.<\/span><\/p>\n

These days, power manifests differently – which is to say that it tries not to manifest at all. We\u2019re on our way to a hideaway, a couple of miles from Corfe. We move like a peasants\u2019 revolt, past the tangled growth of ancient forests, onto the heathland that stretches across the nature reserve of Arne, crossing a medieval footbridge and making our way towards Wytch Heath. When Corfe Castle was built in the eleventh century, this was a busy area for the production of salt, connected with the abbeys of Shaftesbury and Milton, which were two of the area\u2019s most powerful landowners, and archaeologists have found extensive remains of workshops. Later, stone-quarrying became the principle industry, supplying limestone and so-called \u2018marble\u2019 for some of England\u2019s most prestigious buildings such as Salisbury Cathedral. But after the discovery of oil shale in the 1890s, Wytch Farm became involved in a more modern form of extraction. It currently produces 14,000 barrels a day (down from a peak of 100,000), a \u2018late life\u2019 field that still accounts for 1% of the UK\u2019s crude oil demand and 75% of its onshore field production. A significant industry locally, yet many people in Purbeck are barely aware of the oil field\u2019s existence. Even when you look directly towards the oil fields from Arne, your view is deflected by military camouflaging. So it is only when accidents occur that the oil field comes under the spotlight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which is what happened on 26th March this year. 200 barrels of reservoir fluid, containing 15% water and 85% oil, leaked from the pipeline into Poole Harbour. The subsequent recovery operation led to more than 300 bags of oil and contaminated material being collected from the beaches around Poole and 417,000 litres of oil and oily water being collected from Ower Bay, according to the commissioners for Poole Harbour. In the days following the spill, thirty birds were detected with signs of contamination, there was a prohibition against the selling of shellfish and a major incident was declared. It wasn\u2019t the first time Wytch Farm had been responsible for an incident: in 2013, 13,600 litres of crude oil and 560 kg of gas polluted the area due to poorly installed equipment and an inadequate risk assessment; in October 2020, around 6.25 cubic metres of liquid (28% of which was hydrochloric acid) spewed into the site\u2019s \u2018meat\u2019 storage system. What the incidents collectively illustrate is that accidents are hard to avoid, but as long as Wytch Farm continues to harvest oil it continues to pose a threat to one of England\u2019s most beautiful natural areas – a sanctuary for birdlife that featured in recent installments of <\/span>Springwatch<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up the road we go, armed with drums and banners and scientific facts mounted on wooden stakes. The protest march draws in people from all over Dorset – Just Stop Oil\u2019s Shaftesbury branch leads the way; there are members from Purbeck\u2019s Extinction Rebellion group as well as locals without any particular affiliation, a corpus of around fifty protesters: children and pensioners, long-term activists and people drawn to the issue by their love of the local birdlife. Somebody wears a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 globe on their head, there\u2019s a group in pink jumpsuits; catchphrases are tagged to drums and T-shirts – \u2018democracy is a verb\u2019, \u2018tell the truth\u2019; banners display owls and insects and seahorses, underlining the cost of the spill. Over the heath we march, keeping to the footpaths, following a route okayed with the police according to the current legislation, down the road to Wytch Farm, to call on the high-earning but shadowy company Perenco to take responsibility for what\u2019s happened under its watch. But of course no company representative is there to listen to our message: one of the drawbacks of legal protest is that you\u2019re unlikely to cause much of a stir.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018We recycle, we modernise, and we redevelop.\u2019 So claims Perenco, which has run Wytch Farm since 2011 (taking it over from BP). On the company\u2019s website, these ethics aren\u2019t hidden away in the small print but boasted at the top of the homepage: \u2018We limit the impact we have with our operations in oil and gas production. That means keeping the environment in mind and trying to put it back how we find it, as well as putting biodiversity first.\u2019 Like so many oil giants, Perenco can point to their virtuous deeds – locally, they sponsor Corfe Castle Primary School\u2019s minibus, for example – but dig a little into their activities and it\u2019s hard to see such token efforts as anything other than greenwashing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, Perenco launched an action in Peru to repeal a law protecting uncontacted tribes in the Amazon – hardly the work of a company dedicated to putting things \u2018back how we find it\u2019. In the DRC, ex-employees have admitted to Perenco\u2019s responsibility for crude oil leaks, and studies have connected ground-level flaring (contravening local and international law) with respiratory disease and agricultural damage. The company\u2019s CEO, Fran\u00e7ois Perrodo, owns 46 sports cars, including a \u00a312 million McLaren F1 GTR, calls himself a \u2018dedicated petrolhead\u2019 and spends his time between a 25 million Euro castle near Bordeaux and other properties in Paris, London and St Tropez. So much for \u2018keeping the environment in mind\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No Perenco representative comes to see us, no oil workers acknowledge our presence. The drummers form a circle, and others dance behind them, limbs spidering in every direction, heads bobbing to the beat. Others sit on the grass to eat their snacks, connecting with old friends and establishing new ones, weaving into the political declarations the sociable atmosphere of a woodland happening. But the call and response is confined to the bubble of our own small protest group. We might as well be medieval villeins hurling our sticks at the palisade around Corfe Castle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In one surreal moment, a truck arrives, bringing a cow through the gates. The cow stands on her bed, looking down on us all, and we stand aside to let this unexpected cargo through. And here is the futility of our demonstration, when the only response from anybody behind the gates is nothing more than this: the blink of a cow. But as soon as the gates close, the drumming begins again, poems are recited, speeches delivered, solidarity consolidated, before the crowd melts back across the heath, back towards the rising crags of Corfe Castle. And the Purbeck Forest is left to the lovely sound of the birds swooping across from Arne, and the less lovely groan of the oil drills.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nicholas Jubber is the author of five books of non-fiction and a winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book Award. His latest book is\u00a0<\/span>The Fairy Tellers: a journey into the secret history of fairy tales.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>He has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, solar and wind power in the Sahara, the war in Mali and the experiences of refugees crossing into Europe, for publications including\u00a0<\/span>The Guardian, Telegraph\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and<\/span>\u00a0BBC Online.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Call to Action:<\/b><\/p>\n

Attend events in your area to protest against the continued extraction of fossil fuels and slow action on renewables. If you know about a \u2018hidden\u2019 industry like Wytch Farm, tell people about it: businesses like Perenco depend on our silence. If you agree with these arguments, please consider signing\u00a0this petition against the renewal of Perenco\u2019s license to drill at Wytch Farm:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/end-oil-production-at-wytch-farm-dorset<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Behind us the castle: the ragged keep rises from the scarp like a giant\u2019s stumpy tooth. Nearly every day I pass this magnificent pile, but its magic never pales: the way it nestles on the hilltop of Corfe, ringed in fortifications of \u2018burr\u2019 stone and the broken circle of its defences. It\u2019s the magic […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from The Blink of a Cow<\/span>Nicholas Jubber<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[981,1166,1170,1167,1171,1169,1168],"yoast_head":"\nThe Blink of a Cow - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/the-blink-of-a-cow\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Blink of a Cow - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Behind us the castle: the ragged keep rises from the scarp like a giant\u2019s stumpy tooth. 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