Greenpeace drops massive banner at downtown Ring in protest of "mass extinction"
Greenpeace was protesting “mass extinction” in downtown Montreal on Thursday, lobbying that we are currently in the midst of an event that “threatens the very existence of humanity.”
At 7:30 am on Thursday, Greenpeace unveiled a 46-foot-high banner in the center of Place Ville Marie’s 50,000-pound The Ring installation.
The banner is separated into two illustrations. On one side, there are living and healthy animals, contrasted with their skeleton bodies on the other.
Greenpeace Canada confirmed on its social media networks that it wanted to “send a clear message to world leaders at COP 15: protect nature, protect life.”
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The morning protest occurred during the second day of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), which is taking place in Montreal. The conference welcomes governments from around the world who come together to agree on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 to halt and reverse nature loss.
On Thursday morning, a dozen Greenpeace activists arrived at Place Ville Marie and used slingshots at The Ring’s poles to launch thin cables over the structure to hoist the banner.
“We dropped in at Montreal’s ‘l’Anneau’ to remind [Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada] Steven Guilbeault and [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, and all world leaders at the #COP15 for biodiversity that we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event that threatens the very existence of humanity,” says Greenpeace’s social post.
The Canadian environmentalist activist group says Western thought views nature as an “infinite resource to be exploited for profit,” but that this skewed conception of nature has “pushed many of our planet’s life-supporting systems past irreversible tipping points.”
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Greenpeace says Montreal’s COP 15 summit must make a turning point away from the Western world’s “extractive relationship with nature” and pivot into a “respectful one informed by Indigenous wisdom and leadership. World leaders, we’re watching you.”
The protest took place under the supervision of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), who had dispatched several patrol officers there for the occasion.
No further Greenpeace protests took place for the rest of the day and the banner was removed by 10 am.
The COP 15 conference is taking place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal through December 19.
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