With its unique eco-system of more than 130,000 acres of white sandy beaches and marshy grasslands, Padre Island is one of the few undeveloped barrier islands in the world as well as one of the last of America's vanishing barrier islands.

Home to 11 endangered species, including the beloved Kemp's Ridley, -- the smallest and most endangered sea turtle in the world -- Padre Island was designated a National Seashore in 1962 to ensure its protection from development and oil and gas drilling. However, more than 40 years after the United States declared this Texas beach a national treasure, the Bush Administration has sold Padre Island to companies like BNP for oil and gas exploration.

What should be a national seashore protected from development will soon become the site of oil and gas rigs, 18-wheeler trucks and environmental degradation. As gas drilling is due to begin this year, the summer of 2003 could be the last one for Padre Island if Americans don’t take back their beaches and demand protection for their national seashores.

Greenpeace is calling on the American public to take back their beaches and on the United States government to protect public lands from drilling and corporate interests. Drilling is unsafe and unnecessary, citizens have a right to pristine beaches and the United States needs to invest in clean energy and keep the drill off of our beaches.

>> Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle
>> BNP Petroleum
>> The Padre Island Factsheet

Take Action! Write the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, demanding she revoke BNP Petroleum's drilling permit. Our online form makes it easy!

Padre Island Claymation Video! Help spread the word! BNP Petroleum's drilling project on the Padre Island National Seashore will require huge trucks such as 18-wheelers to make 20 trips a day up and down the beach. The damage this can cause to the seashore is just one of the byproducts of drilling that puts Kemp's Ridley sea turtle at a serious risk of extinction.