The following text, unfortunately, is old news. Out of 15 registered black
tides worldwide, Galicia has suffered 7. We are sick of this constant attack
on our natural resources and demand international awareness, immediate
economic compensation and call for your solidarity as a citizen of this
small planet.

Our very future as a people is seriously threatened by the Prestige oil
spill. Misery awaits.

Let it be known that Galicians are fed up.

By distributing this e-mail, you can help Galician sea
workers to get fair and quick compensations, to claim for appropriate
inspections of sea-faring vessels and to provoke enforcement of
international shipping laws. Should it is not the case, this ecological
disaster will be worthless again.

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Galicia is a country that nobody knows exactly where it is or what their
citizens think of or do. And nobody cares. Galicia's shoreline is the main
source of a wide variety of shellfish, from scallops and mussels to exotic
delicacies such as Percebes (goose barnacles) and spider crabs, vital to the
Galician depressed economy.

In a remote green corner at the end of the world, in the north-west corner
of Europe's Iberian Peninsula, everything seems to be fine if there is fish
and seafood enough to be syphoned and served at famous and expensive
restaurants worldwide. Galician inhabitants are very hard workers but they
are not definitely lucky people. No noise was ever made from there or it was
not loud enough to be heard clearly outside there. Emmigration has been the
silent answer for years. Galician people are currently spread all across the
world in a similar proportion to Irish. Nobody worried about it.

Galicia's coast is already depopulated because of poverty and a prolonged
fishing crisis. Ten years ago the Aegean Sea leaked oil in the area. Most of
the fishermen affected are still waiting for compensations. In an area where
all businesses are linked to sea resources many other people will never be
paid because they were not registered as fishermen or shipowners.

A 26-year-old oil tanker broke in two and started and sank off Galician
coast yesterday, threatening an environmental disaster. Should the Prestige
spill its entire cargo of 21 million gallons of oil, a far great disaster
threatens, on double the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez episode in Alaska,
still considered the world's worst environmental oil spill. The Exxon Valdez
lost 11 million gallons. The Exxon Valdez clean-up effort cost $2.1bn
(£1.3bn) and some Alaskan beaches are still oiled. It took 10,000 workers,
1,000 boats and 100 planes and helicopters. Hundreds of thousands of
seabirds, bald eagles and otters were killed as well as up to 22 killer
whales.

The clean-up costs will fall under the remit of the International Maritime
Organisation's Civil Liability Convention of 1975. Under this, the
ship-owner has strict liability for a tanker spill but it is capped,
currently to a maximum of $80m. The maximum combined compensation from both
CLC and the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, financed by the
receivers of oil, is $180m. The number of ships flying flags of convenience
have increased significantly to avoid ultimate responsibility for
environmental and economic damages. Prestige was a ship registered in the
Bahamas, owned by a Liberian company, managed by Greek administrators,
chartered by a Swiss-based Russian oil trader and sailed under the command
of a Greek captain with an Asian crew.

Similar accidents had happened before in the area, but all of them were
quickly forgotten. By distributing this e-mail, you can help Galician sea
workers to get fair and quick compensations, to claim for appropriate
inspections of sea-faring vessels and to provoke enforcement of
international shipping laws. Should it is not the case, this ecological
disaster will be worthless again.