Extinction Rebellion will disrupt Wellington on Monday 7 October, starting an international wave of climate and environmental civil disobedience.
Participants will meet at Midlands Park, Wellington at 7 am before moving to undisclosed locations.
National media spokesperson, Dr Sea Rotmann, says the non-violent action is the first of more than 60 in cities around the world.
The group plans to shut down a number of cities including Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Delhi and London, she says.
In April Extinction Rebellion brought London to a stand-still for two weeks with 1,000 arrests.
Dr Rotmann, an Environmental Scientist, says the New Zealand branch will disrupt Wellington traffic with a street party and expects arrests.
“We want a planet where all life thrives, and all children can flourish,” she says. “Yet business as usual is pushing us towards mass extinction.”
“The lack of meaningful action around climate and ecological breakdown is pushing ordinary people to risk arrest,” she says.
Rotmann says we have a simple choice to “make history or be history”.
“It is time to draw the line and to take whatever non-violent action is necessary to prevent irreversible damage and widespread human misery,” she says.
Dr Rotmann says the event is open to the public with a family-friendly space for people to take part without risking arrest.
Representatives from the group’s twenty branches, from Whangarei to Invercargill, will join the action, she says.
Extinction Rebellion has three demands of Government:
1. Tell the truth and declare a climate and ecological emergency,
2. Act Now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2025, and
3. Go beyond politics and set up a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice.
