Greenpeace: SpongeBob Tells BP - Back Off The Amazon Reef by Don’t Panic Partners

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has enlisted the services of Nickelodeon'sSpongebob Squarepants to raise awareness of the potential risks entailed by permitting oil giants BP and Total to begin exploratory drilling in the Amazon Mouth Basin.

Greenpeace fears the energy giants are just weeks away from winning permission to drill, prompting them to enlist the services of an ocean dwelling cartoon sponge to draw attention to the potential for ecological catastrophe.

Sara Ayech, Oil campaigner for Greenpeace UK, remarked: “Marine biologists are calling the Amazon Reef a new biome, a unique ecosystem, which had been thought impossible. But it is already under threat from BP and an oil industry willing to risk spills and worse in their pursuit of fuel which we cannot afford to burn.

"Wasting money prospecting for soon-to-be-stranded assets is unfortunate, but trashing one of the very few unexplored wonders of nature to do so would be unforgivable.”

The equatorial reef extends to 9,500 sq/km off the Brazilian coast, with authorities there set to sign-off or block nearby drilling later this month.

Greenpeace has calculated that any spill disaster has a 30% chance of reaching the Amazon Reef.

BP is still recovering from the Deepwater Horizon disaster which saw five million gallons of crude oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.