June 27, 2005

Tasman 2005: Image Gallery

© Greenpeace/Pullman

We've put together a gallery of the images from the Tasman Sea bottom trawling expedition, in May and June 2005...

Click each image to view.

June 26, 2005

Wellington - Now It's Wet, and It's Windy

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Hello from Wellington, where the weather has, well, become wet and windy! We're in the middle of doing more 'open boats' at the moment - fair play to everyone who's been braving the elements to visit the Rainbow Warrior. As this phase of our deep sea life campaign rolls to a close, we're leaving Wellington today, en route to Auckland for the 20th anniversary of the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior. This weblog will be coming to an end - but you can follow the adventures of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand via the Greenpeace NZ website. Thanks to everyone's who's been following the weblog over the last few weeks - especially all of you who took the time to post comments. The crew of the Rainbow Warrior have been delighted, excited and amazed by the huge response, which has been a source of inspiration while we've been out at sea.

On Thursday night, New Zealand TV channel TVNZ showed an interesting feature on bottom trawling, on current affairs program 20/20. With interviews from both marine biologist Steve O'Shea and the head of Amaltal Fishing, Andrew Talley, it was pretty exciting stuff, and made for dramatic viewing. The segment showed our protests on the high seas, as well as damning footage of deep sea 'graveyards' - areas devastated by bottom trawling - and our footage of gorgonian coral being dumped off the Waipori.

On one hand, both Greenpeace and Steve O'Shea were shown to point the (fish) finger at the fishing industry for destroying deep sea life through bottom trawling. On other, Andrew Talley was sticking to his (spud)guns, claiming that our statements were "unsubstantiated claptrap".

But the thing is, there is lots of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such as the coral dumping and the bycatch we collected, as well as other footage shown by 20/20. Mr Talley's response to this was quite simple - he says we're not telling the truth. Which is pretty incredible - how much more truth does he need than footage of massive corals from the ocean floor being hauled off bottom trawlers?
It's fitting that this piece aired just as we arrived in New Zealands Capital. With all this clear evidence on the table and now in peoples lounge rooms, the government will have to act. The future of deep sea life is in their hands.

Full transcript of feature available here »

On Wellington's Taranaki St. earlier, we have a billboard poster connected to the campaign - the above photograph is for your viewing pleasure!

- Carmen & Dave

June 23, 2005

Wellington - No Wind, No Wet

Arriving into Wellington, New Zealand
© Greenpeace/Walsh

Our voyage grows closer to its end. This morning, we got our wake-up call from Abri at 7:30am, and stumbled out on deck, rubbing eyes and nursing hot drinks in the chilly dawn air. We were already in sight of Wellington, and the harbour pilot was on board, directing the Rainbow Warrior toward's Queen's Wharf, right in the downtown area. Again, this morning, the setting moon caught our attention - directly off the bow, and above the city. Behind us, the sun was beginning to rise, and off to port, I could hear people beeping out salutes on their car horns.

As we drew alongside the wharf, the sun was started to flash off the skyscrapers, and bemused morning commuters stopped walking and watched us arrive. Some even detoured down to see us coming in, coffee in one hand, briefcase in the other. As we completed our arrival, and pottered about the ship doing our chores, people stopped by to chat, or ask questions.

"What flag is that you're flying, and why", asked one man, pointing up at the red, white and blue of the flag on our mizzen mast.

"It's Dutch," I answered

"It's what?"

"Dutch. The Rainbow Warrior is registered in Amsterdam."

"Ah... thanks!" He smiled, waved, and moved on.

Later, the sun grew higher, and the day turned into a hot one - t-shirt weather in winter! This certainly defies the Wellington's weather reputation - wet, windy and wild. Last year we were almost washed and blown away when we arrived here.

Later, a woman and young man walked by. They stopped, and pointed to the cables running from the masts to the deck;

"Excuse me, my son would like to know what those furry things up there are for?"

"They're for protecting the sails from being damaged. But sometimes we like tell people that we use them to clean rainbows". I winked at her, in conspiratorial manner.

She laughed, her son grinned sheepishly, and she told me that she's a Greenpeace supporter.

"Come on down on Saturday or Sunday and visit the ship, we'll show you around!"

Yes indeed - another two days of open boats this Sunday in Wellington, from 10am-4pm both Saturday and Sunday. See you there!

- Dave

The Marlborough Sounds

The Rainbow Warrior in the Marlborough Sounds, South Island, New Zealand
© Greenpeace/Walsh

Over the last couple of days, we've been making our way from Nelson, on the South Island, to Wellington on the North Island. Our exit from Nelson was a little bumpy - straight into the tail end of some fairly rough weather. As we left the harbour, it was rough enough that a surfer lying on his board in the breakers managed to wave to us!

The Rainbow Warrior in the Marlborough Sounds, South Island, New Zealand
© Greenpeace/Walsh

As we headed out through the bay, the Rainbow Warrior was rolling in some fairly vicious swells, which made eating dinner a little testing - just trying to keep food on the plate was tough work.

By 8pm, we ducked into Croisilles Harbour, a large natural inlet surrounded by craggy hills, where we dropped anchor for the night. Some dolphins were playing around the ship as the Tasman Swimstop Team got ready for yet another dip in the ocean - in the dark! We didn't stay in long this time - with all the cold fresh water running off the hills, the water was rather... cold.

Long white clouds lay low around the hills, eerily visible even in the dark, and we wondered what the place would look in the morning. I've wanted to visit the beautiful Marlborough Sounds for some time - and I hadn't managed to explore them on my last visit to New Zealand. The sounds are a maze of inlets on the north end of the South Island - the ferry from Picton to Wellington has to navigate its way through one of them, Queen Charlotte Sound.

In the morning I woke up pretty early, but dozed off into some semi-dream state, until I was awoken by Carmen.

"Dave, grab your camera and come quick to see the moon setting!"

I jumped out of bed - not something that I'm very good at - and ran up on deck with my camera and tripod. I'd have to work fast - a beautiful golden moon was about to drop behind the mountains, its light shimmering on the water beside the Warrior. I tried a couple of long exposures - but even with the slow lazy rolls of the ship, the photographs were way too blurred.

No matter - the sun was already beginning to drop hints from the other end of the inlet, through a veil of modest clouds. Even though it was still pretty early in the morning, about half the crew were on deck and the hardcore barbecue team already in full swing. The combined squad of Chris, Logi, Emilse, Logi, Carmen and Mal delivered up a massive feast - eaten out on deck, of course. Poached eggs on toast while watching the sunrise from the deck of a ship in the Marlborough Sounds - perfect.

The day brightened, and the sun tried to burn through the cloud, a large halo could be seen around it - and I did manage to catch this on camera. By mid-morning the sun was warm, and the crew were out cleaning parts of the exterior of the ship. When I had a spare moment, I jumped into one of the small inflatables with Oscar, and we went for a quick circle around the ship - to get some photographs.

Another quick swim, and then it was back to work, up with the anchor and away, making for French Pass - a narrow passage between the mainland and D'Urville Island, which Dean, the NZ Communications Officer, told me has a lot of greenstone rock, which promotes a whole series of plants endemic to the island. The scenery on the way to the pass was beautiful, all classic New Zealand hills and cliffs, erupting out of the sea.

The weather was so warm that we ate out on deck again, and as the hills closed in around us, most of the crew was on deck to enjoy the view.

As we slipped through French Pass and out towards the Cook Strait, one angry little pied oystercatcher did two circuits of the ship, bleating out his territorial song. There were hundreds of birds of various kinds sitting on the calm water, and others diving in for fish. Up on the roof of the bridge - where Luiza, Logi and I were taking photographs, I could see splashing up ahead:

"Dolphins!"

Various twos and threes of dolphins were zipping around - a few joined the ship, briefly, before scooting away again.

By nightfall we entered Port Gore - another beautiful natural harbour, fringed by an amazing sunset.

Next stop - Wellington!

- Dave

June 22, 2005

Why Extinction Is So Easy

© ExploreTheAbyss.com

When you go on a tramp (hike) in the mountains here in New Zealand, you start in the lowlands walking among nikau palms, then as you get higher you head into rimu and rata trees, and then continuing even higher you end up in beech forest that eventually thins out to shrublands and mountains tussocks.

As the altitude changes on a mountain you get different types of plants and animals that have adapted to the conditions. And in much the same way undersea mountains also have different zones with different animals the deeper you go. (They are all 'animals' down there - corals included!... because it's too dark for any plants to photosynthesise.)

These rocky seamounts or plateaus cover less than 4% of the deep sea globally and are the targets for deep sea bottom trawlers. The rest of the deep ocean floor is 'muddy ooze'.

Well, imagine you're way down in the cold darkness of the deep sea, where thickets of bamboo coral glow in the dark when something bumps into it.

An umbrella octopus is brooding her eggs on the side of the coral - they will take around 14 months to hatch.

Suddenly heavy rollers beneath a bottom trawl net rip though. The net takes everything in its path and great plumes of sediment muddy the waters.

Everything that isn't caught up in the net is smashed. As the sediment gradually settles on the devastation, it smothers and kills coral and other animals in the surrounding area.

These are ancient ecosystems that have been unchanged for millennia.

Scientists are saying that 18-52% of species living on each seamount exists there and NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD. That's why extinction is so easy with bottom trawling.

There is no future in bottom trawling. The trawlers plunder one area, exhaust it, and relentlessly move on to seamount after seamount. Bottom trawling does not sustain life, it does not sustain fish populations and, as the people of New Foundland have unfortunately already found out, it does not sustain jobs.

You'd think that if Talley's, the Seafood Industry Council and the Orange Roughy Management Company really believed in sustainable fishing they'd be on our side. Instead, they're defending the most destructive fishing method ever devised.

Because Greenpeace has created a bit of a stir, we're starting to hear some weird and wild claims from the bottom trawling industry and their mates about how good bottom trawling is.

Well, we thought that might happen, so we've released a report called 'Red Herrings'. It totally debunks the bottom trawling industry's PR spin with good strong science and shocking examples.

For example, did you know that between 1997 and 1998 bottom trawlers trawling in new areas on the South Tasman Rise caught 4,000 tons of orange roughy ... but in doing so they brought up over 10,000 tons of coral that they then dumped over the side!

- Dean
(Communications Officer, Greenpeace NZ)

Getting Used to Shore Life

The Rainbow Warrior in the Marlborough Sounds, South Island, New Zealand
© Greenpeace/Walsh

Well after what feels like a lifetime, we have finally arrived back in New Zealand. Although we are at sea now, in transit to Wellington, we have had a few days in Nelson to start getting used to shore life. It has been quite a shock to realise just how well the campaign has been going while we have been out in the middle of nowhere.

As a radio announcer said to me during an interview, everyone in New Zealand knows about bottom trawling now. Although we get sent lots of media clippings and of course all your web comments, it is hard to truly get a sense of how things run on land.

I have always thought this was going to be a great trip - but now it's really clear just how successful it's been. When we set out on the expedition, I told anyone who would listen, that we were off to make the unseen seen. And that's exactly what we have done.

We gathered images of deep sea destruction so shocking and so irrefutable that it's now impossible for anyone to seriously deny the problem. Now everyone needs to realise that the only way forward is to create a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters.

So now, on to Wellington, where I will be speaking at the Eco Conference on Friday, about bottom trawling and our voyage to the middle of the Tasman Sea. Stay tuned, there'll be more postings from the Rainbow Warrior in the coming days!

- Carmen

June 21, 2005

Sunny Sunday in Nelson

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Dave:
Sunny Nelson lived up to its reputation on Sunday. I did the early morning watch on deck, 4-8am. As dawn broke, the sun started burning off the thick fog that had enveloped the harbour, and by 9am, the sun was quite warm. Our open boat day started at 11, so I went for a nap - by the time I awoke, the Rainbow Warrior was full of families, with a long queue stretching across the Wharf. I'll leave it up to Abri and Erin to tell you their experiences...

Abri:
As you might expect, speaking to large crowds of people can be a little scary at first, but after the first few tours you realise that they are just regular people, out on an easy going weekend day to hear a little bit about the Rainbow Warrior. Sunday's weather was much better than Saturday, and occasionally you could even see distant mountains showing off their snow-caps through the mist. The one of the nice things about open days is that you also learn a lot about the ship that you didn't know before.

For example, for the whole day I've been telling people that the ship was once named Grampian Fame, but I didn't know what Grampian meant. And then out of the blue an old man told Roscoe that there is a Grampian mountain range in Scotland that overlooks the very place that the ship was originally built! [Here's a neat little fact that our electrician, Haussy pointed out - one of the hills above Nelson is called 'The Grampians'! - Dave]

It was great to meet so many great new people and I had a lot of fun!

Erin:
As a person who does not relish public speaking at the best of times, I was expecting the task of giving campaign speeches to hundreds of people to be and exhausting and overwhelming ordeal, especially after the three weeks of relative social isolation in the Tasman Sea. While I felt both emotions, I didn't expect was the feeling of inspiration given to me by the responses from the Nelson community to Greenpeace's work. The vast majority of people I spoke to were shocked and concerned by the impact bottom trawling was having on life in the deep sea, and many were eager to find out how they could take action in their own lives to help protect deep sea life. As I gave talks to groups of around twenty during tours of the Rainbow Warrior, there were some who challenged Greenpeace's words and actions over the past few weeks . However rather than becoming arguments between myself and individuals, these questions turned into mini-debates, and I gained the impression of that the people of Nelson were eager to discuss these issues amongst themselves, as well as with Greenpeace.

I felt particularly humbled by the words of one woman who stayed back to chat with me after my last talk. She felt that Greenpeace's activists and campaigners were taking the most direct action possible to help to protect the environment, and wished that she could do the same. But while Greenpeace's actions can help the world to see environmental problems and their solutions, it is the concern and personal action of everyday people at home that wins environmental campaigns in the end. The actions of Individuals are just as important as a high profile protest by Greenpeace.

The biggest kick I got was when I felt a shy tug on my shirt and looked down to see two small boys, one of whom looked up and whispered to me "thank you for looking after the ocean for us." I saw them diligently repeating their actions with every crew member they could identify, and saw my own warm gooey feelings mirrored in their faces.

- The RW Open Boat Squad

June 18, 2005

Open Boat and Loads of Rain

© Greenpeace/Walsh

It's been a busy time in Nelson. Last night, two reggae bands - One Vibe and Wicked Draw, and two DJs -RAS Selector and DJ Bird played a benefit concert for us in a local venue, The Phat Club. Lots of the Rainbow Warrior crew, as well as local activists went along. It was very strange to see Wooly's video footage of bottom trawlers - with Greenpeace inflatables zipping around them - playing in big screen at the back of the stage. But thanks to everyone who was involved or attended!

This morning brought torrential rain - not a good situation when we were throwing the boat open to the public. But the population of Nelson are a hardy lot - we were barely finished setting things up when groups of visitors started arriving in their droves.

I love doing open boats - after weeks of communicating by phone and email, it's both exciting and reassuring to be able to discuss the campaign with people. I think it's one of the most important things we do, as an organisation. I had all kinds of conversations with all kinds of people - children, tourists, environmental scientists, old age pensioners, truck drivers, ex-fishermen, school teachers, even a former Rainbow Warrior ship's doctor. They all seemed very well informed about what we have been doing out in the Tasman Sea.

Because of the inclement weather, we had rigged a canopy over the bridge deck, to keep out visitors dry, so they could look at photos of our work, as well as shots of the coral on board the bottom trawler Waipori. A quick explanation of the campaign from Carmen, then it was down onto the main deck for a look at the inflatables, and if it wasn't too wet, a visit to Dave The Dolphin on the bow. Then some of the NZ team were down below, in the hold, showing a video of our work. It was a busy, busy day - and lots of people stayed for ages, chatting. One lady asked me to explain to her sons the story of the bombing of the first Rainbow Warrior twenty years ago - because they wouldn't believe her. It was very strange to deliver a quick talk on the major event in New Zealand industry to a crowd of Kiwis... and me an Irishman!

- Dave

Land At Last: Nelson Ahoy!

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Three weeks - it's a long time to be away from land. There were a few jittery knees today as we clambered down the gangway, in Nelson, on New Zealand's South Island, to a warm welcome from our landlubbing colleagues. Nelson is the largest fishing port in Australasia, so it's a natural place for us to visit on our campaign to protect deep sea life.

Nelson has a reputation for sunny weather - but the sky was overcast this morning as we sailed in from the Tasman Sea. This just added to the eerie drama of returning to land - the sea was strangely flat, and the overlapping profiles of mountains on either side blended into the layers of cloud. A pod of dolphins stayed a little way off, breaking the water every minute or so. Out on deck, last minute preparations were being made - decks and windows washed, Protect Deep Sea Life banners secured to the railings.

I found myself wearing four layers of clothes - even Oscar was going around in gloves. After spending most of the trip at more balmy northerly latitudes, Nelson sits down at 41 degrees south, and a chill wind was blowing off the snowy mountains.

Well outside Nelson, the pilot boat arrived - we took the pilot on board, and he arrived in the bridge, taking charge of our navigation for the final approaches. In around the breakwater, and a turn, before we come alongside. There's a good crowd waiting for us on the wharf - friends, family, colleagues - and the Reverend Harvey Ruru, a Maori elder. There's also a cluster of journalists and camera crews - waiting to interview us for TV and newspapers. Since we caught the botttom trawler Waipori dumping a huge piece of coral last Sunday, we've been all over the media here in New Zealand.

When a ships comes into port, you just can't go jumping on the quayside right away. A couple of friendly customs officials came on board, and in New Zealand, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food arrive for an inspection. It's a pretty quick procedure - but when people you want to hug are waving from the quayside, a half an hour is a long time.

Finally, we're ashore - where a team of Greenpeace activists, along with the Reverend Ruru, launch into a Maori song, to welcome us, as guardians of the sea. Pete, our captain, acknowledged the welcome - and responded with thanks - and the rest of us responded with song. We'd been rehearsing all morning!

Te Aroha
Te Whakapono
I te Rangamarie
Tatou Tatou e

(The Love
The Truth
The Peace
All of Us)

And at last - we embrace. We're back... and it's good to be back. Now for the open boat days!

- Dave

June 16, 2005

Open Boat In Nelson

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Land Ahoy! On Friday 17th June, the Rainbow Warrior will be arriving in Nelson, in New Zealand's South Island. And on Saturday and Sunday, we'll be having an 'Open Boat' - that means we'll be opening the ship up for public tours between 11am and 3pm on both days.

You can find us at the Coastal Berth, with public access from Wakefield Cove.

Everyone welcome!

- Dave

The Last Days At Sea

© Greenpeace/Walsh

As I write this, we're coming towards the end of our voyage in the temperamental Tasman Sea. Outside, the weather is rough, so I'm twisting my hips left and right in my chair, compensating for the rolling of the ship.

We've been out here for three weeks now - none of us have set a foot on dry land since leaving Auckland on May 27th. It feels longer though - when you're on a ship for a certain amount of time, it becomes your world. Sending email to friends and family is a bit like contacting some other universe. There's 24 of us on the Warrior right now - captain, mates, cooks, radio operator, medic, deckhands, engineers, campaigners, boat drivers, photographers... and we all have to get along, in a sailing ship that's only 55m long.

You learn a lot about people in situations like this. You can make friends for life - and understand how to deal with the habits and eccentricities of other people - that in another situation might seem irritating. And you've got to be conscious that one of your own minor quirks might start driving someone crazy. But there's also fun - we laugh till we hurt. When downtime is needed, you learn how to find your own space, and how to switch off from the hectic day-to-day of running a campaign.

It's a whole other world of experience too. There's the sudden realisation of familiar things that have been forgotten (trees, cars, bills, TV, land). There's seasickness to put up with - there's no shame; we all suffer from it at some time. And even out here, nature is all around - the bioluminescence in the water, the daily companionship of albatrosses and pintado petrels, the occasional pod of dolphins or passing school of sperm whales. We've seen sunfish surfacing beside our inflatables, catching some rays from the winter sky. And that sky - the night skies are incredible, and the sunsets, oh the sunsets. I've started labelling my photographs 'IMG_1234_another_bloody_sunset.jpg'.

Then there's the swim stops. Some of us - the New Zealanders, Australians and me, the token Irish guy - have taken to jumping into the Tasman whenever the sea is relatively 'flat'. It's strange, bobbing around in the water, knowing that there's at least 1km of water under your feet. It's even stranger when a huge albatross (these guys have wingspans of 2-3m) is sitting in the water in front of you, wondering what you might taste like.

But it's not all fun and games - it's hard work out here. On a busy day, we get to work at 8am, and often clock off in time for bed, around 11pm. For the last couple of weeks, we were out of bed long before sunrise, after tracking down another bottom trawler, or to revisit one we'd already got. One our work on the water is done, getting back to the ship often means the beginning of the next part of our day - getting the story out to the world. In my case, that means sitting down to write my weblog,

It's pretty weird, sitting out here in all this weather, trying to understand the waves we're creating back on land. As you'll have seen earlier in the weblog, last week we had New Zealand fishing industry spokespeople announcing that our claims were 'unsubstantiated claptrap' - and that NZ bottom trawlers 'simply do not drag heavy trawl gear across pristine sea floor'. A couple of days later, we witnessed an NZ trawler hauling up a massive piece of red coral - so large that it took two men to drag it to the stern ramp, and dump it over. News from the shore says that even standup comedians and politicians are talking about bottom trawling. The fishing industry seems strangely quiet, amidst the fracas.

Last Sunday, after we had caught the trawler Waipori with its haul of precious coral, I was standing on the deck of the Warrior with Chris. 'Today', I told him, 'made me remember *again* why I do this job, what makes it worthwhile'.

- Dave

Meet Abri: Assistant radio operator, Deckhand & Chief Garbologist

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Abri

From: South Africa

Job: Assistant radio operator, Deckhand & Chief Garbologist

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
The Warrior was docked at Incheon - a small town near Seoul, South Korea, where I have been living for the past five years. It was on a campaign against whaling.

One of my friends called me up and told me that he heard that there would be an 'open day' on the ship. I wasn't feeling very academic that day, so I decided to skip Korean class, and go look at the ship instead.

The visit to the ship must have made a tremendous impression on me, because after the open day, I couldn't stop thinking about it and all the amazing things that Greenpeace does. For the next week, I did my everyday things as usual, but the Rainbow Warrior was always in the back of my mind. I was corresponding with some of the crew via email, and it was through them that I heard that there would be another open day, this time in Busan.

The day before the ship was due to arrive I zipped south to Korea's second largest city on their new bullet train system. I had the name of the place where the Warrior was to dock, a crummy tourist map, my compass and my GPS. I guesstimated the direction I should head, and stared hiking. After 5 hours of walking along some beautiful seaside trails, I found it - The Korean Maritime University! Having found my destination, I decided to head for a backpacker's hostel and get some rest.

After getting up at 3:30 on a misty morning, I headed back to the university. It was just starting to get light when I arrived. After hanging around for a while, I saw a "Korea Friends of the Environment Movement" minibus drive by me. I started walking in the general direction it was driving. A few minutes later, they came back and asked me if I was with Greenpeace.

While I was helping them set up their inflatable welcome-boat, cameramen and reporters from the local news agencies started arriving.

Where before there was only hazy mist over the sea, the faded shape of the bow of the Rainbow Warrior gradually started to appear. It was truly beautiful, and I felt so excited! As it got closer I could see people, and it wasn't long before I started recognising some faces! Gina, the volunteer from Fiji who gave me the first open day tour, was the first of the crew to recognize me!

So, then it started; I followed the ship around from port to port, as it travelled around Korea. Because I could speak some Korean and I know how things work there, I was soon helping the crew out with things like changing money, and finding obscure parts for the ship.

Next thing I knew I was standing on the deck of the Rainbow Warrior, watching the land that has been my home for half a decade slowly fade into the horizon.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
While I would probably survive without it, by far my favourite item on the ship would be the sextant. I feel humbled when I hold such a magnificent instrument, the product of hundreds of years of refinement by the sailors of the seven seas.

If you were marine animal, which one would you be?
I was christened "Beluga" (a kind of whale) during the crossing of the equator ceremony on the way to New Zealand from Korea.

- Abri

June 15, 2005

Meet Malcolm: Photographer

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Malcolm

From: New Zealand

Job: Photographer

What other jobs have you done?
Ten years ago I was a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald, where I specialised in maritime and Pacific affairs, and spent many hectic shifts as an assistant chief-reporter. Throwing away a regular journo's pay cheque I moved to the countryside to reinvent myself as a freelance photographer come small time publisher, specialising in conservation issues.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
This is not my first trip on the Warrior - 15 years back, when most other reporters were badgering the editor for front-line roles covering the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, I was pleading for a posting to the Tasman Sea, because I was incensed about drift net fishing. For once in an editorial conference, conservation beat sport and politics - I was sent sailing to report on the "walls-of-death" being strung across the seas of the South Pacific.

Even before then I had shown Greenpeace sympathies, helping fund raise in Whangarei when the protest sailing ship Fri was being readied to sail for the French nuke testing zone at Mururoa. Earlier this year Greenpeace needed a photographer to cover the occupation of a power plant that a big electricity company wants to convert to coal burning, not far from my home in Northland. At least some of my power station photographs must have been in focus, for within a few weeks the emails were flowing and here I am, back at sea in the Tasman and proud to be here.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Humour!

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
One too small to take baits or be caught in the cod end of a fishing net

Anything else you'd like to say?
Outside of work I love surfing and snow skiing with my family. At 56 years-old, the oldest on the boat, I still rate myself as a surfer, riding a shortboard and hoping to not even consider graduating backwards to a longboard until I'm 70.

- Malcolm

June 14, 2005

The Orange Roughy Story

It recently occurred to me, what with all the writing I've been doing about bykill or bycatch - the fish discarded by bottom trawlers - I've not said much about the target species of these boats - orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus). After encountering so many doleful stares from bulging eyes - either through bottom trawl nets or, from disembodied heads, expunged via bycatch chutes, I thought it was high time to tell their story.

Looking like some weird prehistoric goldfish, orange roughy look orangey-red when its hauled out of the ocean, they're actually designed to appear black. Down where they live - between 500 and 1700m below the surface - oranges and reds are the first colours to be leached out of the colour spectrum, leaving the fish difficult for predators to see. Even the inside of their mouths appears black - probably a method of fooling their prey - crustaceans, squid and fish.

Orange roughy are part of an order of fish called Beryciformes, which have a system of sensory canals in their heads, known as Jakubowski's organs. These mucus-filled areas, which surround the eyes, are what give the roughy family its less marketing-friendly name: slimeheads. The more pleasant 'orange roughy' came about when a New Zealand scientist came across them, following a trawl by a Japanese boat that he was on board. Unable its describe it any more positively than a member of the roughy family, he wrote down 'orange roughy'. Which made sense, I suppose, as the fish were orange.

Until the late 1970s, roughy were regarded as little more than museum curiosities. However, Russian and Japanese trawlers discovered huge stocks - and dumped their catches as 'worthless'. Despite their subsequent popularity, this isn't such a surprise. Early attempts to determine the edibility of orange roughy achieved some unsavoury results - which resulted in yet another unappealing moniker: 'diarrhoea fish'. To counter this, a filleting technique was introduced that removed a fatty layer from beneath the skin. The offending substance in the fat - known as wax ender - has been delicately described by author Peter Batson as having a 'strong purgative effect'. Once rendered safe, the orange's flaky white flesh proved popular - especially as a replacement for the increasingly rare cod.

But even apart from suffering blame for dietary discomfort or occasional crisis of identity, the orange roughy is still an enigmatic fish. Growing to maximum size of only 50cm, orange roughy are thought to live an age of up to an incredible 150 years old - spanning several human generations. Many of us humans have problems tracing our family back past 100 years, never mind the lifetime of an orange roughy.

Slow growing, and long lived - not great characteristics for a commercially exploited species. Some New Zealand populations of orange roughy are now estimated to be only three percent of their original size. But there's still demand for their white flesh - so the bottom trawlers keep fishing for them, dragging up heavens knows what else along the way, like Sunday's huge piece of coral!

- Dave

Meet Logi: Boat driver and logistics

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Logi

From: Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Job: Boat driver and logistics

What other jobs have you done?
When on land I am a winemaker, and I'm involved in Treaty of Waitangi-based activism. The treaty is one of the founding documents of Aotearoa. It is a treaty between Maori - the indigenous people and the British crown. Signed in 1840, its place in our history has been controversial.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
Last year I was fortunate enough to be involved in this campaign, and coming out on the Rainbow Warrior again is an amazing privilege. To be here following through on work we did last year is both challenging and rewarding. With the support we have been getting back on land it feels that we are having real effect and hopefully the deep sea will soon get the protection it so urgently needs.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
The good people that are on board, their energy, aroha, determination, laughter and smiles.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
I'd love to be a blue Maomao. These small fish are the brightest fluorescent blue, and if you know where to go you can stand in knee deep waves and they play around your ankles. Any fish that has the courage to stand out so much and come close to humans deserves a lot of admiration and respect.

- Logi

PRESS RELEASE: Rainbow Warrior returns from bottom trawling protests

Nelson, New Zealand: The Rainbow Warrior will sail into Nelson Friday for a weekend of public open days and discussion, after nearly three weeks at sea highlighting the destruction of the deep sea by bottom trawling in international waters.

While at sea, Greenpeace was able to document clear evidence of the impact of bottom trawling, including a tree-sized piece of ancient coral that was hauled up by the New Zealand vessel, Waipori.

"The Rainbow Warrior is coming into Nelson to talk", said Carmen Gravatt, "We want to talk with the community of Nelson about what is happening out in international waters and why Greenpeace is calling for a UN moratorium on high seas bottom trawling." said Gravatt. "Bottom trawling in international waters is the biggest threat to deep sea life."

The Rainbow Warrior will also hold a series of open days for the public in Nelson, Wellington and Auckland before it travels to Matauri Bay, for the twentieth anniversary of the bombing of the first Rainbow Warrior. Members of the public will be able to come onboard over the weekend to learn about the workings of the ship, it history and the impacts of bottom trawling on deep sea life.

Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner on board Rainbow Warrior on 00872 1302412 or 00872 324 453 510

Dean Baigent-Mercer communications officer in Auckland 021 790 817

June 13, 2005

Meet Beate: 2nd Engineer

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Beate

From: Germany

Job: 2nd Engineer

What other jobs have you done?
I have also worked voluntarily in human rights.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior?
I started with Greenpeace in 1999 staying on board of the German Greenpeace vessel, the Beluga, for six months as engineer. Since then I have been sailing on the Rainbow Warrior. I have been involved in a variety of campaigns - forest, oil rigs, GE-Food, No-War, ship scrapping...

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
First, good company. Second, good books.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
I like swimming, but the air is a more challenging medium to me.So I'd rather be a bird anyway.

Anything else you'd like to say?
Onboard we are a very international crew and I find it a pleasure to work with people from all over the world on the same issues. It is good to get together, share what we know and do something with and about it. I think it is of utmost urgency to preserve what we have left on this planet. May it be the forests, a toxic free environment or the fish and mammals in the sea - I want to protest against exploitation of this earth. We humans are so arrogant against creation we keep destroying this world in order to make profit. Still, too few people realize that without a healthy environment we are nothing.

For me it's normal to take action about environmental issues as such. But for the overwhelming amount of people in most countries, it is still a luxury to even think about it. The day will come when those people are able to think about their environment as well. Then, I will be happy.

- Beate

Meet Ed: Deckhand

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Ed

From: England

Job: Deckhand

My name is Ed, I'm from the North west of England. I am sailing as deckhand on the Warrior at the moment. For around three years now I have been sailing with Greenpeace, and I have been fortunate enough to sail on all the ships currently in the fleet. I first had the opportunity to sail with Greenpeace when volunteers were required for the Warrior's tour of the U.K and Ireland, which was mainly a whale and Dolphin survey. Later, the ship was requested in North West Spain for the oil spill from the tanker Prestige. Arriving in La Coruna was one of the most inspirational experiences, as there were around one hundred boats to meet us, and maybe two thousand people waiting on the quayside.

All this, plus the experience of sailing with some very dedicated crew and volunteers, had a very good effect on me. So I was hooked. I suppose my previous experince in inshore rescue and some basic nautical qualifications helped my cause for more sailing.

I am sailing at the moment as part of the Seamounts campaign, against destructive bottom trawling, in the Tasman Sea. At first, it appears that it's a lot of effort and resources for a bunch of very unfortunate, and also very ugly fish, but as we know everything is linked in the greater picture, so it is just as important as other campaigns.

Earlier in the trip, the sea state was pretty rough, with a large messy swell, I think this is the main reason for the strange sounds comming from adjoining cabins, of people vomiting and uttering exhausted moans and groans in pain and relief.

Touch wood, so far I am OK, thank God - and the weather is better now. A few mornings ago we were being followed by a shark and there are also no shortages of albatross, sure enough before long we will be joined again by some playful dolphins. Survival on board is made easier if you can live alongside many different types of people in close proximity, with a lot of understanding and tolerance to noise and sleep deprivation. It can be hard when you miss family, friends and people with whom you are intimate, but when those thoughts appear, it is good to look forward even more to seeing them again at the end of the journey.

In my time ashore I need alot of rest and peaceful time in the hills, and I also try to educate myself and mushroom my awareness of the way things are, and how the miscreants that are ruining the planet can be stopped or changed.

My hope is that one day soon we can all see clearly and gain a better understanding of the natural cycles of creation and destruction, so we may have a better overview, which would help everyone to take more action in maintaining the wonder of this planet. Give me somewhere that I can grow some potatoes and watch little rabbits playing in the sunshine, and I am happy.

- Ed

Meet Oscar: 1st Mate

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Oscar

From: Spain

Job: 1st Mate

Tasman Sea

Rationality is a natural condition, mankind is nature and nature is mankind, why separate them?

At the end it doesn't really matter what will happen to the earth, since it is itself who self-destroys and who self creates again.

But if rationality is a part of it, the ability to use it belongs to humans.

This sea, rebel brother of other oceans, defyer of ships, has calmed his soul, allowing individual humans without names to confront each other so that society will ask itself some questions.

Maybe nature will be unable to use this unique condition, but at the end, all is uncertain and truth does not exist, we only can follow our hearts.

- Oscar

June 12, 2005

Caught - Red-Handed!

A crewman holds up a dead deep sea crab for the Greenpeace camera © Greenpeace/Pullman

The Rainbow Warrior crew witness a huge piece of coral being dumped over the side of a New Zealand bottom trawler in the Tasman Sea!

Watch the video here

In a recent article in The Nelson Mail, Andrew Talley of New Zealand fishing company Amaltal was quoted saying that our "talk about bottom trawling damage and unsustainability was 'unsubstantiated claptrap'". Then Owen Symmans, of the Seafood Industry Council of New Zealand announced that "New Zealand fishers simply do not drag heavy trawl gear across pristine sea floor as suggested. Technology allows boats to 'fly' trawl gear above the sea bottom to target the fish, with little impact on the sea floor or organisms that live on the bottom."

Pretty amazing claim this, considering our release of a striking photograph showing a massive piece of gorgonian coral caught in 2003 in the Tasman Sea. This photograph had, interestingly enough, to be obtained via New Zealand's Official Information Act from the Ministry of Fisheries.

Misters Talley and Symmans may have to eat their words. This sunny Sunday in the Tasman Sea, we caught the New Zealand-registered bottom trawler Waipori dumping a massive coral tree down their stern ramp and into the sea on the West Norfolk Ridge, in the international waters of the Tasman Sea.

We tracked down the trawler in the wee hours of the morning, when most of us were asleep. I awoke with the sensation that were no longer steaming, with the Rainbow Warrior was rolling gently in the swell. I met Chris in the stairwell, who gave me a quick rundown on the trawler. On the deck above there was a hubbub of activity, with people grabbing breakfast, getting their boat suits on.

Before long we had the Avon in the water, getting up close to observe the trawler. Then the call came back 'they're hauling'. We put another boat in the water, and Wooly and Malcolm headed out with the camera gear.

According to Wooly, "when the net was hauled up - after just two hours in the water, the catch was tiny - I estimated maybe no more than 100KG of fish in there".

"There was loads of coral though - the entire cod end was full of it. When the net came up on deck, they were just using one box for the fish they were keeping, and chucking loads of stuff down the ramp - some small fish, and what looked like rocks!"

In Wooly's video footage, the crew of the bottom trawler can be seen picking up and carrying armfuls of black coral across the deck, and putting it to one side. Whatever they were doing with it, they certainly weren't dumping it. The black coral was later identified by marine biologist Steve O'Shea as Leiopathes and Bathypathes - both CITES-listed (UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) and endemic to seamounts.

One of the trawlermen then held up a large crab (identified as Paralomis of Yaldwyni - a very rate species, according to Steve) and waved it at the cameras.

Wooly's footage also shows a man, who appears to be the skipper of the Waipori, walking out towards the stern ramp and waving his fist at us, and shouting "f*** off and get a real job!". Charming.

Later, just before midday, the Waipori came towards us, passing within a stone's throw of our stern - a dangerous manoeuvre, clearly meant to scare us away.

Then, in the afternoon, the most incredible thing happened. We watched the bottom trawler bring up a second haul - with very few fish. However, this time, inside the net, was a huge piece of scarlet-coloured coral. As you can see from the photographs, the coral 'tree' still has its 'roots' - meaning it had been an entire coral colony. As the fishermen wrangled it clear of the 'net, it was easy to see that the coral was taller than the men on the deck.

Then, nonchalantly, in full view of us, two of the bottom trawler's crew dragged the coral tree to the stern ramp, and slung it down. It plunged into water, sinking immediately, 1000m down... dead.

There's a mixture of emotions running around the Rainbow Warrior at the moment. On one hand, some of us are elated that we've caught the fishing industry red-handed. On the other hand, some of us feel disgusted - and saddened - to have witnessed such blatant environmental abuse.

I've just been out on deck with Gareth, cataloguing the 'bykill' that we collected today, rattails, dories, sponges and other beasties that we have yet to identify. We also retrieved what appear to be two dead lantern sharks. These are beautiful black dogfish with bright green eyes, and grooved spines on their dorsal fins. They get their name from their ability to produce bioluminescence - a method of hiding their silhouettes from below.

So... back to the claim by Mr Symmans that 'bottom' trawlers don't touch the bottom... well, it's claptrap - simple as that. And we would like him to explain where this mother-of-all corals came from - if not from the bottom of the sea. After all, there's not much in the way of coral, crabs or rocks hovering around above the ocean floor! These bottom trawlers are basically clearfelling the ocean floor, mowing down entire habitats - and no amount of public relations spin by the fishing industry can provide a cover-up for this ongoing environmental crime.

- Dave

PRESS RELEASE: 'Claptrap' substantiated with concrete evidence

Crewman on the New Zealand bottom trawler Waipori grapple with a large piece of 'Paragorgia' coral dredged from the deep sea in their net. © Greenpeace / Pullman

Last week Amaltal director Andrew Talley called Greenpeace assertions "unsubstantiated claptrap". Today, photos and footage taken by the Rainbow Warrior crew prove him and others supporting bottom trawling wrong.

Crewman on the New Zealand bottom trawler Waipori dump a large piece of 'Paragorgia' coral dredged from the deep sea in their net. © Greenpeace / Pullman

Greenpeace crew from the Rainbow Warrior today captured images of endangered black and red corals being hauled aboard a New Zealand bottom trawler in international waters near Norfolk Island.

"Again and again, we have caught the bottom trawling industry red-handed with the evidence of deep sea destruction in their nets. How many more pictures of clearfelled coral forests do governments need to see before they recognise that a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters is urgently needed?" said Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace oceans campaigner.

"Fishing industry leaders scraped the bottom of the barrel last week when they claimed bottom trawl nets didn't touch the sea floor. Well, once again we've got the proof," said Gravatt. "We'd like to see the fishing industry swallow their pride, realise that bottom trawling is not sustainable and support our calls for a UN moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters".

The nets of the Waipori, owned by the Tasman Pacific company, seemed to have few fish but many pieces of the corals. Greenpeace filmed a range of bottom dwelling species that were also in the haul of the New Zealand vessel, including a rare crab (Paralomis cf. yaldwyni).

The New Zealand Government delegation at last week's UN meeting on oceans got the message and made strong moves to get governments globally to take responsibility for the destruction of bottom trawling in international waters.

The 2003 scientific NORFANZ expedition surveyed throughout this region and identified it as a 'biodiversity hotspot'. It has been described as a marine 'Jurassic Park' - with ancient species that are the tuatara of the sea, as old as dinosaurs.

The images were taken on the West Norfolk Ridge, just over 200 miles off the coast of northern New Zealand.

NB Although the smaller corals looks red, it is the skeleton of the coral that is black. The large red coral is a centuries-old gorgonian tree coral.

A crewman on the New Zealand bottom trawler Waipori holds up a bottom dwelling deep sea crab for theh Greenpeace cameras. © Greenpeace / Pullman

CONTACTS:
Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner on board Rainbow Warrior on 00872 1302412 or 00872 324 453 510 Erin Farley, Greenpeace New Zealand communications officer on board Rainbow Warrior - 00872 1302412 or 00872 324 453 510

Dean Baigent-Mercer communications officer in Auckland 021 790 817

Meet Chris: Onboard Logistics Coordinator

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Chris

From: New Zealand

Job: Onboard logistics

The mountains of Aotearoa's (New Zealand's) Southern Alps look down over forests of incredible diversity and beauty. It was here that my desire to help protect the wild places on our planet began. I was one small part of an amazing group of people trying to save the forests of the West Coast from the destruction that was fictitiously named 'sustainable logging'.

Last year, I found myself surrounded by mountains of a more liquid nature when I travelled to the Tasman Sea on the Rainbow Warrior. The Tasman's mountainous seas look down on ancient forests equally as diverse and beautiful as those of Rimu and Beech. The amazing undersea world out there is not as accessible to the public as those forests back home, but are threatened in a similar way. Industry likes to place dollar values on stuff that they don't even own - the destruction that goes on out here for the profit of a few, is destruction of life held in common for all of us. Just like back when my activist life started, I am honoured to be a small part of this amazing group of people.

- Chris

Chris left the high powered world of waiting on restaurant tables four years ago for the crazy world of Greenpeace. He hasn't looked back but can still mix a killer martini.

Bottom Trawling: A Global Problem

© Greenpeace/Pullman

The Rainbow Warrior has been steaming hard, venturing further out into in ternational waters in a search for more bottom trawling vessels. Up to no w, we have encountered only Kiwi bottom trawlers - however, New Zealand is definitely not the only nation involved. In 2001, just eleven countries were responsible for approximately 95% of the reported high seas bottom trawl catch. The most prolific amongst these nations was Spain, followed by other European countries and Russia. Australia comes in just outside the top eleven.

Along with New Zealand, Australian vessels are largely responsible for the destruction of the seamount ecosystems in the South Tasman Rise, an area in international waters south of Tasmania. Deep sea fishing in the area began in the late 1990s, after large orange roughy populations were discovered. Huge quantities of coral were hauled up and recorded during the first years of the fishery - an estimated 10,000 tonnes, compared to a catch of only 4,000 tonnes of orange roughy. Despite the existence of an agreement between Australia and New Zealand to manage this fishery, no regulation was ever implemented to prevent damage to corals or other deep sea habitats. Photographic and video survey evidence of the area now suggests that bottom trawling has wreaked terrible destruction on the coral eco-systems.

The collapse, a few years ago, of the orange roughy fishery in the Southwest Indian Ocean was another example of the failure of the world's bottom trawling fishing industry to regulate itself. Following the discovery of orange roughy in 1999, vessels from Australia, South Africa, Ukraine, Namibia, Seychelles, Japan, France and New Zealand all rushed to join the Indian Ocean fishing frenzy. Other bottom trawlers from the Cook Islands, Taiwan AD Province of China, Korea, Belize, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Chile were also believed to have been taking part - but none of these countries provided catch data to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Consultation on how to regulate the industry finally began after only three years of indiscriminate, unregulated fishing - which had resulted in severe depletion of the fishery - it was already too late. While up to 49 vessels were reported to have been bottom trawling in the Southwest Indian Ocean region between 1999 and 2001, by 2002 only six were recorded. Negotiations on the management of the region continue - still without any agreement. In the meantime, fishing fleets have come and gone and the fishery has collapsed.

These two examples highlight the urgent need for a global moratorium on bottom trawling. New Zealand is definitely part of the problem, but it will take action from the United Nations to really address the destruction wreaked by bottom trawling on the unknown worlds of the deep sea.

- Carmen

Meet Kate: Assistant Cook

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Name: Kate

From: Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Job: Assistant Cook

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
I ended up here because around 2000 I started doing volunteer activist stuff for Greenpeace. Later on I trained with the ropes team - so every now and then I get asked if I want help out on various protests. The most recent action I've been involved in was the occupation of the Marsden B power station in February which I was really stoked to be a part of.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
A sense of humour :)

If you were marine animal, which one would you be?
A big ray of some kind.

To people reading the weblog:
Kiaora everyone - thanks heaps for the support we've recieved through the web log, it means a lot.

- Kate

Meet Haussy: Electrician/3rd Engineer

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Haussy

From: New Zealand

Job: Electrician/3rd Engineer

I have been working on the Rainbow Warrior for a coupla years now , I guess it was simply my appreciation of nature and enjoyment of the outdoors which gave me the opportunity and the motivation to be on the Rainbow Warrior.

There was no choice to be made - when I was asked if I would crew on a Greenpeace Vessel, I couldn't turn down the chance to at least try to alter this course of on-going destruction that we, as humans, seem so intent on imposing on our planet.

- Haussy

Thanks for all the messages!

© Greenpeace/Walsh

Hi, Carmen here. On behalf of the Rainbow Warrior crew, I want to thank everyone for following the story of our protest against bottom trawling in international waters, and especially for all the messages of support we have received!

We have been getting your weblog comments by email - they really help to boost our morale, and give us inspiration. There are so many that unfortunately we can't write back to all of you individually. But each and every one of them is appreciated.

While we feel privileged to be able to be out here taking direct action against bottom trawling vessels, it is both wider support from the public, and action by people in their everyday lives that ultimately win environmental campaigns. Thanks and keep the messages coming!

- Carmen

June 11, 2005

The fat lady has sung in NY and she is decidedly off key

New York, United Nations, 8:45pm

As the final day at the oceans meeting here at the UN in New York draws to a close, we’re sitting at the back of the room, unable to speak as the debate is now only among states. They have been at it since 10am this morning. The translators have long gone. It even looks as though half the delegates have gone home or nodded off.

And the meeting has just finished the discussions on whether it is possible for states to encourage one another to take ‘urgent measures’ to protect deep-sea life. New Zealand played a leading role by making a forceful statement on the need for states to take urgent measures. They even argued for “interim targeted bans on bottom trawling”, and were supported by Costa Rica, Nigeria, Mexico, Chile and even the European Community (although we are led to believe that this was due to a small lapse in focus by the Commission on behalf of the Community). The discussion went on for quite some time, with Canada and Iceland gradually whittling down the language until everything centered on the use of one word: ‘regional’. Iceland refused to lose the word “regional”, which led to the discarding of the whole paragraph on high seas bottom trawling, just like the unwanted by-catch the Warrior has seen thrown over the side of the bottom trawlers in the Tasman.

11.20pm

A remarkable development since our earlier notes. It seems that there was so much discontent over the exclusion of the language on bottom trawling, that some ‘informal’ discussions have – quite unexpectedly - rekindled the discarded paragraph. Translated from UN-speak into English, it appears that these states have agreed to work more quickly together – even urgently - to establish temporary measures (like halting bottom trawling, which it does not say) in areas where they have an interest in the conservation and management of fisheries resources. Essentially what this appears to mean is that states are beginning to accept that they need to act to stop their vessels bottom trawling on the high seas.

The theme of this meeting was the contribution of fisheries to sustainable development. The repetitive discussions were sustained late into the evening, but few concrete actions to stop the oceans crisis were developed. A potential giant step forward for the protection of deep-sea life was almost thwarted by the intransigence of one state, then partially rescued. This meeting may be in its final phases, but we go forward from here knowing that the momentum towards a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling is strong, and growing. We will be working around the world with our colleagues in the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition to ensure that more and more States support this call and that these states finally act to ensure the future of the deep sea.

Karen, Saskia and Sebas in New York.

Meet Gareth: Deckhand

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Gareth

From: New Zealand

Job: Volunteer deckhand

On the Rainbow Warrior, I am volunteer deckhand, but I am also a former Frontliner for Greenpeace New Zealand and Greenpeace Asia Pacific, and have volunteered for 5 years.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
I got a call a week before we left, asking if I'd like to come aboard, and I gladly jumped at the chance.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
My essential survival item is a good stash of books and a small chess board with pegs so it won't move.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
If I was a fish I'd be a coelacanth, because they are ancient and I would have loved to see the ages go by.

To people reading the weblog:
I'd like to send out my appreciation to two groups; the frontliners that do the hard yards to bring in the dollars, and the volunteers to whom Greenpeace wouldn't exist as it is an effective organisation.

- Gareth

June 10, 2005

The fat lady is warming up in the wings.

Less than 24 hours to go here at the UN, but no-one thinks it will be over according to the timetable. We meet half an hour each close of session each evening to talk about which countries are doing what to whom and what the word is in the corridors of this strange building where so many monumental decisions have been made. This evening it was especially tense because the draft outcome was presented to the awaiting delegates to take home and consider overnight and come back tomorrow to negotiate during the day and no doubt night – drafting by committee is a laborious process.

'The Text', as it's affectionately called, presented to folk this evening by the Chair, is the basis on which countries or negotiating blocks like the EU come together and argue over each spit and cough, every nuance is argued and every comma is discussed. It is truly soul destroying in process but at the same time magnificent that the planet can come together in one place at one time over one issue and find or force a stumbling compromise or "resolution". Resolute – yes we are. Resolved, perhaps not, given Spain's desire to screw the process as well as the EU's dignity along the way.

You've got to wonder about the process, given that Spain who have only 19 vessels outside the realms of already established rules are taking down not only the EU, but also the rest of the world and the chance to protect the oceans we know so very little about.

Karen and Saskia sit behind me and talk about glass half empty or half full.

At this point late on a Thursday night, with only a day to go, we wonder whether the deep sea will get the protection it so desperately needs – a moratorium on bottom trawling before it's too late.

We're hoping for a grand marriage of Neptune and The Fat Lady on the UN stage this time tomorrow.

Susan

Day 2 at the UN: "Without Conservation, Fisheries are doomed"

Happy World Oceans Day! We've been really busy at the UN. Today was the day I got to speak on one of the panels at the meeting. I was really privileged to sit on the "Civil Society and Science" panel with three incredibly distinguished people. Dr Boris Worm is a marine scientist at Dalhousie University in Canada, though originally from Germany. His presentation focussed on the disappearance of the top predators from the world's oceans - the tunas, swordfish and sharks and it was sobering stuff. For example he opened by saying that while the oceans cover 70% of the planet, if you include their depth, then our oceans make up 90% of the biosphere!

Dr Worm's research has shown that 90% of the oceans large predators have declined since the rise of industrial fishing having major impacts on marine ecosystems. He continued that "the scientific community is in very little doubt that this is a crisis." In order to stop this crisis, he said that a number of things have to be done - that the impacts of some types of 'fishing gear could be mitigated' (changed for the better) but that others, like those used for bottom trawls, simply could not.

Key to restoring the diversity and productivity of the oceans would be setting aside certain areas of the ocean as 'no take' marine reserves: areas where no human activities are allowed but where fish and other marine life can grow and live without human interference and then 'spillover' into the surrounding ocean areas. He concluded that the 'oceans have been depleted and changed on a global scale" and that to restore them, we have to minimize the destructive impacts and try to maintain diversity and adaptive capacity by creating a network of marine reserves.

Dr Callum Roberts, a marine scientist from the University of York in the UK then spoke of the benefits of marine reserves for the oceans. Commenting on the state of the oceans around Europe's shores and management failures, he said, "if this were a publicly listed company, the shareholders would have fired the directors long ago." He argued that 'no industry has a right to cause a species to go extinct and that fisheries managers can no longer ignore the habitats and ecosystems that species live in. Dr Roberts focussed on the benefits of no-take marine reserves, citing a study that showed that marine reserves in Kenya had improved the food security of the people living close to them. To prevent overfishing, he suggested that the scientific literature has shown that between 20 and 40% of the sea should be set aside as a network of marine reserves. He concluded, "without conservation, fisheries are doomed" and that "marine reserves are not a last resort, but a foundation for the sustainable management for the future."

Sebastian Matthews from the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers then presented on the importance of small-scale fishing to coastal communities. I am sure his presentation will soon be up on the UN website (look under "law of the sea") as it offered some clear insights into the issues impacting on small-scale fishers across the world, in so doing compromising their livelihoods and cultures.

It was then time for me to speak. Maarten, our unbelievably brilliant videographer in Amsterdam had put together a short DVD that showed the impacts of industrial fishing on our oceans and the people that depend on them for their livelihoods. Unfortunately, just like yesterday when the phone-link to Carmen failed, UN technology could not get the DVD to work (even though we had tested it during the lunch break). It was very frustrating but we are going to get another opportunity to show it tomorrow just before lunch. So, without the delegates seeing the plight of our oceans in full colour, it was up to me to speak to their hearts, and hopefully influence their minds.

I reminded them that we were there to protect the oceans, and spoke about the Rainbow Warrior being out on the high seas and the extent of destruction. I quoted Albert Einstein who once said, "our technology has surpassed our humanity" - Einstein was, of course speaking of nuclear weapons, so I said, "the high seas bottom trawl fleets that ply the high seas, constrained only by how much they can catch in these largely unregulated waters, come very close to being a weapon of mass destruction for deep-sea life." I asked the delegates to make good on the promises already made and honour the agreements already signed ... and do something positive and proactive before its too late.

A lot of questions were asked of the scientists on the panel. It was really amazing to see that these government policy makers, who always argue that they need science before they can take action, had two independent and highly respected scientists before them, and proceeded to question whether their findings were valid. Here were two people, with no economic or political interest in the world's oceans, using facts and figures gathered by the governments in the room to show them the dire straits that our oceans are in, and their data and conclusions were questioned. Our team was left wondering whether the arguments for "science based decision making" that we always hear are yet another excuse for inaction.

The statement that raised the most eyebrows was, however, made by a representative of the Canadian Fishing Industry speaking on a panel yesterday when he said "the ocean can adjust and industry can adjust". Speaking to the decline of the cod stocks off Newfoundland in Canada, he went on to say, "our industry would not necessarily want the cod to come back" because they make more money off snowcrabs and shrimp now. So what happens when they have fished out the snowcrabs and shrimp? ... Sigh.

More tomorrow when the panels end and some of the backroom politics come out into the open for the negotiations around the recommendations that the meeting will make on some of the issues to be included in the General Assembly Resolutions on oceans and fisheries later this year.

Karen.

The Biggest Threat: A Collapse of the Ocean Ecosytem

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Naomi, 2nd Mate on the Rainbow Warrior, shares her experiences of working on fishing vessels, and her thoughts on the future of fishing, as well as the ocean ecosystem

I am currently Second Mate (2nd Officer) on the Rainbow Warrior. In 1973, I started sailing for Greenpeace issues, on an old traditional sailing ship, the Fri - to the French atmospheric testing site at Moruroa Atoll, a voyage which led to the founding of Greenpeace NZ in 1974. I remained on Fri throughout the 70s as she continued her peace work around the globe, under the auspices of Greenpeace NZ. In 1989 and early 90's, I rejoined the Greenpeace fleet, for the commissioning and early campaigns of the new Rainbow Warrior.

In 1993 I left Greenpeace, to gain my Second Mate Foreign Going qualification (to be a ship's officer), and in the process started working in the fishing industry. Working on a deepsea longliner, fishing for Southern Bluefin, I fell in love with the skipper, but we remained 'ships that pass in the night' while I spent six years as a ships officer for P&O Nedlloyd. He continued deepsea longlining for 5 years, out of Queensland Australia, then returned to NZ where we bought a small offshore trawler. I also spent a short stint in 1995, on the deck and factory of the New Zealand fisheries research vessel Tangaroa, taking part in deep sea bottom trawling as part of the Chatham Rise orange roughy survey that year.

As I am used to working with fishing crew, and used to the ups and downs of the fishing industry, I have a lot of respect for what it takes to be a good fishing skipper. I also have a healthy respect for the dangers of using heavy fishing gear and I respect the stamina it takes to work the very long hours. As a ship's officer, I am used to being at sea and being away from home for long periods of time, so I know that this is a aspect a fisherman can take in his stride. What is more difficult are the financial risks for an owner operator, long spells of heavy weather that brings income to a halt, expensive gear breakdowns, and the decline of fish stocks. The last factor is pretty evident, I'm sorry to say. We can still 'tick over' a living fishing whatever offshore quota is available, but a lot of small fishermen depend each year on the albacore tuna summer season, which is still not subject to quota, just to get them through the year.

I watch the deepsea trawlers that we have been trailing for the past three days, and know very well what life is like on board. I feel sympathy for the skippers, watching their small catches coming up in the net. Less than 2 tons, not much target species evident, it really is scratch fishing out here, though I know that 'up the line' someone might be catching a bit more. They are out here to maintain a catch history for the company, and it has been a failure of both the fishing industry and government to properly manage the fisheries stocks which is the problem, not the individual skippers trying to figure out all the variables of current, bottom contour, feed marks, fish signs, and gear design.

The fishing skipper knows, the fishing company knows, and we know, that the main intent of Greenpeace actions is to focus attention on the issue.

And the issue is this: One bottom trawler may not seem significant - But there is a huge fleet of trawlers worldwide, big and small, and many of them are bottom trawling. I know very well that fishing skippers are not always concerned about the niceties of ecosystems growing on a seamount or plateau. I also know that for many years we weren't really aware of how complex these ecosystems were, which may explain how deepsea bottom trawling has gone on for so long - 25 years - before the damage is very belatedly being addressed.

The only real way to protect vital areas of deepsea ecosystem, which can sustain fishing into the future, is to extend protected areas of deepsea bottom, much as we have protected areas for the inshore fishery. Unfortunately, most deepsea bottom is outside the 200-mile Economic Zone boundaries. At present our knowledge of this vast area is minimal. Fishing companies are fighting for their economic future, particularly in NZ where the industry is not sustained by subsidies. The biggest threat to fishing future is not Greenpeace, but a collapse of the ocean ecosytem.

If this campaign - which puts me somewhat at odds with my fishing contacts - helps to put the brakes on commercial overfishing until the ecosystem can be further assessed, the fishing industry will definitely suffer in the short term, but may well have a long term future - instead of no future at all.

- Naomi (2nd Mate)

Meet Dave: Web Editor

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Dave (aka Walshy)

From: Ireland

Job:
Web editor - I write and solicit articles for the weblog, and upload it (with help from Hans the radio operator). Back on land, Nick, the New Zealand web editor makes any necessary tweaks... Basically, being an on board web editor is a bit like being a photojournalist - I have to write up the day's events, and use photographs, either Malcolm's (photographer) or my own, and get the whole thing published via a satellite connection. It's a pretty strange job - I have to know as much as possible about all that happens on the Rainbow Warrior, and convey it to the outside world.

What other jobs have you done?
I studied engineering, but through a series of misadventures, stumbled into the Internet industry in 1995, and into freelance journalism after that. After spending years sitting at desk staring out an office window at Dublin, I decided that I needed a change. Now I sit at a tilting desk, staring out a porthole at a heaving ocean. Regrets? None!

Essential survival items for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Seasickness pills, I'm ashamed to say. Next, MP3 player stacked with music and crazy things like Goon shows from the 1950s. Finally, a few good books are crucial. It's really important to able to clamber into one's bunk now and then, put on headphones, open a book, and just switch off. Strangely, this is possible, even in stormy seas.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
I'm fascinated by eels, and the history ofhumans finding out where they come from. They spawn in the murky Sargasso Sea, swim all the way across the Atlantic, live in European rivers for years, then wander back to the Sargasso to breed and die. And they can cross land!

Anything else you'd like to say?
Absolutely. This is my third seamounts campaign in the last twelve months - so I've already spent around three months tracking bottom trawlers. In that time, I've lost count of how many netfulls of fish I've seen, but I'll never forget the tonnes of 'waste' - bycatch or bykill I've witnessed being thrown overboard, or the amount of ancient coral being trampled on the decks of trawlers.

- Dave

More Trawlers, Please!

© Greenpeace/Walsh

We saw the last of the Ocean Reward today - we left it to its daily grind of wrecking the ocean bottom. Now we're heading further out to sea, looking for other bottom trawlers. We know that vessels from Australia have been out here in the past. There have also been flag of convenience ships - we found one of the latter last year, the Belize-registered and chinese-owned Chang Xing, and caught them dumping CITES protected black coral through their bycatch chute.

The sea is still pretty calm, and while the sky was mostly overcast today, we were treated to a spectacular sunset. Tonight, out on deck, there's a beautiful sky - the Milky Way is a lot more visible here than I'm used to in the skies over Ireland. Jupiter is overhead, gleaming brightly, and Sirius - the Dog Star (also known as Canis Major) is showing its green and red twinkles. On the horizon, there=92s occasional flashes of lightning - which feels weird when the sky is so clear above us.

On the Rainbow Warrior, the crew are taking it easy. The last few days, since the discovery of the Ocean Reward, have been a bit hectic.

Stay tuned for news of our next bottom trawler exposure!

- Dave

June 09, 2005

PRESS RELEASE: Amaltal Miss the Boat with Dodgy Legal Tactics

Thursday, 9 June 2005: After two successful days disrupting destructive bottom trawling, the Rainbow Warrior has headed off to find bottom trawlers from other nations, including Australia. The Rainbow Warrior had already steamed away from the Ocean Reward on its mission when Greenpeace received notice that Amaltal was going to apply for an injunction.

"The fact that companies like Amaltal are allowed to continue destroying our global marine heritage and wipe undiscovered species off the face of the planet, is completely outrageous. This highlights the urgent need for the international community to take action to protect deep sea life so that we don't have to," said Greenpeace campaigner, Carmen Gravatt.

"New Zealand is not the only country involved in bottom trawling in international waters. We are now taking the Rainbow Warrior further out into the high seas to look for other vessels to show the world the range of countries involved in deep sea destruction. The New Zealand vessel, the Ocean Reward, is fishing in an area where there is no fisheries management agreements in place and where we know that New Zealand-flagged vessels have in the past fished alongside vessel under flags of convenience," said Gravatt.

Meanwhile, fishing industry voices attempted to defend the world's most destructive fishing practise by claiming innocence for their weighted bottom trawl nets, saying they had little impact.

"The industry is being dishonest in its defence of bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is now considered by marine scientists to be the biggest threat to deep sea biodiversity and the UN last year called on States to take urgent action to address the impacts of destructive fishing such as bottom trawling."

In January this year the report of the Millennium Project's Task Force on Environmental Sustainability – a UN Advisory group looking at how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals - recommends that "global fisheries authorities must agree to eliminate bottom trawling on the high seas by 2006 to protect seamounts and other ecologically sensitive habitats and to eliminate bottom trawling globally by 2010.

Right now the UN is discussing how to manage the world's oceans at a meeting in New York, and it is at this global level that we need action.

"The writing is on the wall, the science is leading the charge and grabbing at legal tactics will not change the fact that the days of high seas bottom trawling are numbered", concluded Gravatt.

-----------------------
Q&A

*In fisheries for species such as orange roughy, which aggregate above seamounts, don't properly deployed bottom trawl nets only skims just above the seafloor to avoid damaging fishing gear?*

This claim is directly refuted by scientific studies that document high coral bycatch rates in orange roughy fisheries. In the first year of the orange roughy fishery on the Tasmanian Rise off New Zealand, observers estimated that 1.6 tons of coral were caught each hour, with over 10,000 tons of coral estimated to be caught in just one year. The tendency of schools of orange roughy to swim downward away from predators and fishing nets also increases the chance of net contact with the bottom as the net is further lowered to catch fish. If it were possible to avoid the bottom, fishermen would have no objection to eliminating rollers, rockhoppers, "canyon busters", and other gear which is specifically designed to enable contact with the seabed. But even if it were possible to completely avoid the bottom, there is no means of effectively enforcing such a practice on the high seas.

*Seafood Industry Council say Greenpeace have reported New Zealand bottom trawlers as being "good operators", is this true?*.

SeaFIC has completely taken the quote out of context and misrepresented our words.

*Is Greenpeace anti-fishing?*

No. We want people fishing for their livelihoods in hundreds of years time. The only way that will happen is if the industry is environmentally sustainable. But the very nature of bottom trawling means this is very unlikely. The collapse of the Atlantic Cod fishery of New Foundland in 1992 was because industrial bottom trawlers took too many fish and destroyed their habitat. Bottom trawling is the most destructive method of fishing in the world. That's why government's need to act to put in place a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters, to give scientists time to study deep sea life.

We have taken action because the world's governments are failing to end the destruction.

*Has Amaltal threatened Greenpeace.*

The over-reaction from Talley's is just further proof that the fishing industry know that there are big problems with bottom trawling. They clearly don't want everyone to see just how unsustainable bottom trawling is – which is why the Rainbow Warrior is out here now.

This isn't just about Talley's or the NZ fishing industry, it's about the destruction wreaked by bottom trawling on deep sea life and how governments worldwide are failing to protect the unknown worlds of the deep sea.

CONTACTS:

Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner on board Rainbow Warrior on 00872 1302412 or 00872 324 453 510 Erin Farley, Greenpeace New Zealand communications officer on board Rainbow Warrior - 00872 1302412 or 00872 324 453 510

Dean Baigent-Mercer communications officer in Auckland 021 790 817

Meet Luiza: Deckhand

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Luiza

From: Brazil

Job:
On the ship, I'm working as a deckhand... In my "normal life" I used to run four shops in Brazil - I did that for seven years but I wasn't happy anymore. So, I sold my business, took out my savings and ran away to New Zealand to spend a year away from my country and try to find my own way... what I really want to do with my life.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
Since I left Brazil everything in my life has happened very quickly, so I was in a pizzeria in Devonport (Auckland) when I met some people from the Rainbow Warrior crew - three days later I was working on board the Rainbow Warrior.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Seasickness pills... for sure!

If you were marine animal, which one would you be?
Dolphin - because they seem more free than other animals. They can travel anywhere in the sea - to the middle of the ocean or the coasts. And they seem to be always smiling.

To people reading the weblog:
Life is to short to be wasted... if you are unhappy with yours maybe it's because you are on the wrong path, so take a chance and try to change. You'll need courage to do that but when you try, life will help you find your way... please, don't be worried all the time... try to do your best!

I'm still looking for my way, but I can fell I'm closer, now. As you can see, I'm on the Rainbow Warrior... one of my dreams came true.

Certa vez num bosque me deparai com dois caminhos diferentes. E eu... eu escolhi o menos viajado. E isto fez toda a diferença

- Luiza

Swimming with Albatrosses

© Greenpeace/Walsh

I have seen a few things at sea - I have swum with whales, seen a green flash sunset or two, but never have I seen my shipmates confused with bykill (what we used to call bycatch).

Erin came up to the bridge a few minutes ago, asking if we could stop for a swim call. I was not too surprised. Our New Zealand colleagues had gone swimming every afternoon when we were anchored in the lee of North Cape last week, waiting out the gales. Though we are now 300 miles from shore, swim calls still happen. But in the Tasman in the winter, you have to be tough!

Half a dozen or so of our bravest jumped in. Erin from Australia, Dave from Ireland, and first mate Oscar were the only non-locals in the group. And Oscar did not stay in long.

We have noticed when the trawlers start to haul their nets, albatrosses immediately gather around in very large numbers. Seeing a stopped boat on the fishing grounds, with debris floating around, several of the birds assumed it was dinner time.

They came in and landed near the swimmers, and paddled right up to a meter away, before realising these were strange fish. And these fish did not seem quite dead. But is was not until the strange non-so-quite dead fish would swim towards them that the albatrosses would decide to leave in a big hurry. They would come back time after time, hoping the floating debris would stop splashing long enough to be eaten.

Albatrosses look like seagulls on steroids - they are the size of a big domestic turkey (which, in the US, are also probably on steroids). If you see one take off, you would understand why they never like to land. Their feet slap the water, their tails wiggle back and forth, it's a lot of work. Maybe not as much as a swan, but you get the idea.

The closest any of the crew got was our hot boat driver Logi, who would swim up to them every so slowly. Remember, albatrosses spend their lives flying along and looking into the water. None got fooled. It was a great show, and not one I will soon forget.

- Pete

Meet Pete: Captain of the Rainbow Warrior

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Peter Willcox

From: USA

Job: Captain of the Rainbow Warrior.

What other jobs have you done?
I have been a sailor since 1972. I first worked on the sloop Clearwater in New York, doing environmental education. I joined the Rainbow Warrior in 1981, when she came to the US.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
The biggest change on the Warrior has been email, of course. Being able to stay in touch with family on shore has made a big difference. DVDs and laptops have changed things a bit as well. But life on Greenpeace boats still feels much the same. I greatly enjoy working with people who become friends from all over the world. The work is compelling.

To people reading the weblog:
Working for Greenpeace has been an adventure and a treat. I have learned so much. And had some fun along the way.

- Pete

The first few days in New York at the 'United Nations Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea' (UNICPOLOS)

June 6th and 7th, The first day at the United Nations Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS), saw a series of formal opening statements by state delegations, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs, followed by a more informal panel discussion, in which national officials and stakeholders shared the floor.

For us the opening statements were a first test on whether our work in the past months is yielding the support we require for a UN moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. We were excited to hear New Zealand and Norway raise the issue of deep sea bottom trawling and its impact on seamounts. It was disappointing though that the European Commission, speaking on behalf of the European Community, did not live up to their responsibility as regulator of the world's largest high seas bottom trawling fleet to even mention this issue.

As always, the real politics are shaping up on the periphery of the meeting - in the corridors, the back of meeting rooms and in the cafeterias. In working the 'back rows', Greenpeace 'fish sticks' - smart USB sticks adorned with our logo and containing our documents and extra space for use - have proven particularly useful. They are going like hotcakes amongst the delegates.

As part of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), Greenpeace also hosted a side event. Callum Roberts, a scientist from the University of York, UK presented the irrefutable scientific rationale for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. We also used this event to launch our new report on the mismanagement of fisheries in the NAFO area (an area off the east coast of Canada), which not surprisingly created waves with some of the NAFO members present at the meeting.

The real business of the meeting began this morning with panel presentations on the issue of sustainable fisheries. Carmen was supposed to be patched into a DSCC press conference by satellite phone from the Rainbow Warrior to tell the media at the UN what was really happening on the high seas. But the UN is a really old building and despite the huge satellite dish outside, we couldn't make a connection to the Rainbow Warrior. Instead, Karen read the statement Carmen would have made, and showed the giant piece of Gorgonian coral that was found in the trawl net of a New Zealand high seas bottom trawler last year.

Back at the meeting, the fishing industry was trying to convince everyone that "bottom trawl nets don't really touch the seafloor, and when they do, it's only for a really short time." This begged the question - if there is not supposed to be much contact with the seafloor, why invent a trawl door called a 'canyon buster'? During the debate that followed, Greenpeace were called 'pirates' for trying to stop bottom trawlers from killing off deep-sea life in the North Atlantic last year - we are thinking of investing in some eye-patches and a flag with a skull and crossbones!

Matt Gianni then got to respond to some of the myths we'd heard earlier on behalf of the DSCC. He explained why we are calling for a moratorium and how destructive bottom trawling really is to deep-sea life. Another lively debate followed before the meeting adjourned for the day.

Meanwhile, it appears that the European Union Member States have come unprepared for this meeting. They seem unable to agree on a strong common position. We've heard that they may actually agree to something by Thursday - hopefully in the nick of time to positively influence the process here.

Tomorrow afternoon's panel has two influential scientists on it, and then Karen gets to speak. We'll make sure she has her pirate robes pressed and ready for the occasion.

Saskia, Cristian, Sebas and Karen.

Click here for images from the UN

June 08, 2005

Meet Lisa: Medic

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Lisa

From: USA

Job: Medic

What other jobs have you done?
Secretary, hospital nurse, tree-sitter, trouble maker

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior?
Went to an open boat in Oregon, met the crew, applied for a job, voila!

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Definitely chocolate.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
Nurse-shark

To people reading the weblog:
I think that everyone can be an environmental activist, and fight for human and non-human species. Thank you for all the good work you are doing!

- Lisa

Deep Sea Destroyer Delayed!

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Wednesday: It's an overcast calm morning in the Tasman Sea. Four inflatables from the Rainbow Warrior are in the water, astern of the Ocean Reward. The bottom trawler is drawing its cables in, having dragged its net along the sea floor for some six hours.

© Greenpeace/Pullman

While we bob around, the Rainbow Warrior radios the skipper of the Ocean Reward, informing them that we are undertaking a peaceful protest, with no intention of interfering with their navigation, endangering their crew or damaging any equipment.

First, the trawl doors come up, clank into place. The trawler crew change over the connections, and start winching in the net. As the 'cod end' of the net breaks the surface, our boat races alongside, so that the Malcolm and Wooly can record the motley array of animals packed inside. As usual, there's not much sign of orange roughy, even as the net is pulled up the stern ramp.

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Action stations! Logi and his team in the Waka Nui move in. Abri reaches up with a pole, clipping a triangular banner reading "End Deep Sea Destruction" to the port trawl door. Let it be known - this is not as easy as it sounds. Next, Logi does some remarkable boat drivin - he reverses the Waka Nui over towards the bottom trawler's starboard side, towards the other trawl door. All the time, the Waka Nui is connected to the first door by a cable, via a hand-held pole held by Roscoe. He reaches out with this pole and sign setup - clips it on to the trawl door. There's some tugging, and yes, the sign is on! The Waka Nui pulls away, leaving the Ocean Reward beautifully branded as a deep sea destroyer. In addition, the doors are now linked together, preventing them from being used. If the trawler lowers its doors like this, the net will be effectively 'choked' closed.

The bottom trawler crew are a little better behaved today - there's no firehoses, potato-based projectiles or verbal abuse. Instead, they seem resigned to trying to remove our signs, while their skipper seems to be heading his ship towards the Rainbow Warrior - a little worrying, perhaps.

Now, we wait for the net to be dropped. Flavio steers one of the smaller boats right up to the stern of the trawler, in order to dissuade them from continuing fishing. The Ocean Reward's crew are having none of this, and deploy the net. As the net pays out, Flavio and Gareth get out of the way, and the Waka Nui gets back in the action - this time, the guys manage to secure a yellow barrel reading "Protect Deep Sea Life" to the net.

Suddenly, the trawler winch changes direction, and the net is hauled back on board. Our barrel scoots along the sea, and then is bounced up onto the deck. The trawler's deck crew disentangle it, and try to deploy the net again. Once it's back in the water, Logi and the boys pull up to it again, and attach yet another barrel - and again, the net is hauled back on board. The barrel removed, they drop the net yet again. This time, the Waka Nui's crew don't manage to get purchase on the net - and it slips below the waves, dropping over one kilometre to the bottom of the ocean, for another day of wrecking the environment.

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Although we've spent the morning disrupting the trawls with direct actions, it will really take some government action to stop this carry-on for once and for all - to put a moratorium in place.

- Dave

PRESS RELEASE: Greenpeace Again Halts Bottom Trawling in International Waters

Tasman Sea: For the second day in a row, Greenpeace has disrupted a New Zealand bottom trawler in international waters. Bottom trawling the sea floor is the biggest threat to life in the deep sea, and every trawl does incredible damage.

Using the Rainbow Warrior and inflatable boats, activists successfully stopped four trawls by the vessel, the Ocean Reward in the international waters of the Tasman Sea.

Activists first used a cable to connect the vessel's several-tonne trawl doors together, choking off the net and preventing it from being deployed. Hung from the cables were signs reading 'End Deep Sea Destruction'. Later, floating barrels reading 'Protect Deep Sea Life' were repeatedly attached to the net, forcing the vessel to haul the net back in.

"Greenpeace is taking action today because government's are failing to end the destruction," said Greenpeace oceans campaigner, Carmen Gravatt.

Less than four percent of the deep sea is rocky areas such as seamounts, ridges and plateaus. It is these few areas that hold some of the largest diversity of species and undiscovered life on earth. Unfortunately, this also means these areas are also the prime target for bottom trawlers.

"At the moment it's a race against time as bottom trawlers wipe out life in the deep sea before we even know what's down there. Every trawl we stop could save a coral forest that took hundreds of years to grow. We urgently need a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters."

"While we did our best to stop the destruction by a bottom trawler today, the only way to protect deep sea life for the future is for governments to act."

Before taking action, the Rainbow Warrior informed the skipper of the Ocean Reward that Greenpeace were undertaking a peaceful protest and did not intend to interfere with their navigation, endanger their crew or damage equipment.

Contact:
Dean Baigent-Mercer communications officer in Auckland 021 790 817

PRESS RELEASE: NZ Maritime Union backs Greenpeace protest action against bottom trawling

The Maritime Union of New Zealand is supporting the direct action by Greenpeace activists on the Rainbow Warrior against bottom trawling fishing vessels in the Tasman Sea.

Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson says it has become obvious that overfishing and bad practices such as bottom trawling were wrecking the environment, and would also destroy the industry that depends on the environment.

"The time has come to stop talking and start direct action, because in our experience that is the only way to get things done."

The Greenpeace action is against the practice of bottom trawling, where weighted nets are dragged along the ocean floor, tearing up the habitat of sealife and causing massive damage.

Mr Hanson says New Zealanders need to think about the livelihoods of future generations as well as the environment.

He says the fishing industry needs to be completely overhauled with much stronger regulation and a long term strategy to overcome its problems, especially with regard to pay and conditions for workers, and the sustainability of fish stocks.

"The Maritime Union has been demanding action on the shocking treatment of overseas crews fishing in New Zealand waters, and if that is how workers are being treated we can only shudder to think of how the environment is being wrecked."

For further information contact Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson on 0274 453 532 or 04 801 7614

Meet Flavio: Bosun

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Flavio

From: Brazil

Job: Bosun - It is my job to maintain the ship and keep her clean.

When/where did you start with Greenpeace?
I started working with Greenpeace 11 years ago. I moved from the huge city of Sao Paulo to Florianopolis, a beautiful island, full of forests, lakes, dunes and waterfalls. Some friends and I began a local conservation group, which then turned into a local Greenpeace group, lasting for 6 years.

Around 2000 a friend was asked to go and work on the Amazon campaign for Greenpeace, and I went too. I volunteered on the ship, Amazon Guardian, as a campaign volunteer, and aftewards, the captain asked me to stay on as a deckhand volunteer. I worked as a volunteer, then as deckhand and now I am the Bosun.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior
Most of my time with Greenpeace I have been sailing on the Arctic Sunrise - It is my first time on board the Rainbow Warrior. I like it, she is a beautiful boat. It is good now, I am starting to understand her ways, she is understanding my ways and we are in harmony. We are helping each other.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
My books and my music.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
When we crossed the equator a few years ago we had a ceremony, because it meant we were no longer Pollywogs. Neptune (Luis, Chief engineer from Colombia) gave me the name Oriental Sweet Lips, after a kind of reef fish.

(It is a traditional sailing rite of passage to graduate from Pollywog to Shellback when sailors cross the equator. )

- Flavio

The Ocean's Revenge

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Another hectic day in the Tasman Sea. On Monday night we located the Ocean Reward, yet another familiar Deep Sea Destroyer from last year's campaign. This year, however, it's changed its colour from a dark blue to the red and white of the Talleys fleet.

At first light this morning, Oscar, Luiza and I headed out in the Avon to keep an eye on the Ocean Reward, which had just dropped its nets. The sea was quite calm, except for a big lazy swell rolling up from the south, which had both the bottom trawler and the Rainbow Warrior rolling back and forth. On our approach, the crew of the Ocean Reward piled out on deck - very interested in our arrival.

The morning wore on - the sun climbed higher and hotter in the sky - a sunfish about 1m across surfaced near the Avon, flapped its fin, then slipped away again.

About 12:30pm, the big winches on the bottom trawler began to roll. We scrambled together more of our team - we now had three boats in the water, watching the net being hauled on board. Like the hauls of the other trawlers, there seemed to be precious little orange roughy in the net - just lots of other creatures, including squid.

The crew of the Ocean Reward crew emptied the massive net, then dropped it back into sea - and this was when things really started happening. As as the fishing gear floated on the surface, the Waka Nui inflatable surged forward, with Logi at the helm. Abri and Ed were armed with boathooks, ready to hook up an inflated liferaft to the net - to stop it sinking.

In response, the Ocean Reward hauled its net in twice, and started manoeuvring in erratic patterns - at one point even steaming towards the Rainbow Warrior!

On the bridge, campaigner Carmen radioed the skipper of the Ocean Reward, to reassure him that we were undertaking a peaceful protest, and that we did not intend to interfere with his navigation, endanger his crew or damage his equipment.

She didn't receive any reply - instead, the crew of the Ocean Reward rigged up a 'spudgun' powered by compressed air, and used both this and firehoses to bombard our activists with water and potatoes (as well as some pretty strong language). Despite this, the guys on the Waka Nui did a remarkable job of getting the liferaft attached, and significantly delaying the deployment of the net, and disrupting the bottom trawling practices of the Ocean Reward.

It was an auspicious day for a bid to stop bottom trawling in the Tasman Sea - today is the first day of a United Nations' meeting - UNICPOLOS - in New York, on how to manage the earth's oceans. Later tonight, Carmen will phone in live to a press conference at the UN, giving the meeting a first-hand account of what's been going on out here. More as it happens...

- Dave

June 07, 2005

PRESS RELEASE: Rainbow Warrior Takes Action Against Bottom Trawling

Tasman Sea: On the first day of United Nations' discussions on how to manage the Earth's oceans, Greenpeace has taken action against a vessel using the most destructive fishing method in the world, bottom trawling.

© GREENPEACE / Pullman

Using the Rainbow Warrior and inflatable boats, Greenpeace activists disrupted the New Zealand vessel, the Ocean Reward, from destroying deep-sea life while bottom trawling in international waters of the Tasman Sea.

Activists delayed the vessel from deploying its net by attaching an inflatable life-raft, despite being shot at with compressed air guns and sprayed with high pressure fire hoses.

Bottom trawling nets are dragged along the sea floor. Huge chains or rollers attached to the front of the nets destroy everything in the their path, including coral forests, as well as sponges, worm tubes, mussels, boulder fields, and rocky reefs. Huge numbers of non-target fish and other deep sea creatures are unintentionally caught as well. Then they are dumped.

"This type of fishing is considered by scientists to be the greatest threat to deep sea biodiversity and every trawl does incredible damage," said Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner on board the Rainbow Warrior.

"A global moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters is urgently needed to protect life in the deep sea."

This week the sixth meeting of the United Nations Informal Consultation on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS) gets underway at the United Nations in New York. The focus of the meeting is on sustainable fisheries and it is expected that the demand for a UN moratorium on high seas bottom trawling will be again be on the table for discussion. There is a growing number of countries that are moving to support this as the only responsible action to provide immediate protection for deep sea biodiversity.(1)

Last year Greenpeace documented bottom trawlers hauling up sea stars, rocks and even endangered black coral, despite fishing industry claims that their bottom trawling vessels did not touch the seafloor.

"Greenpeace is taking action against bottom trawling in international waters because governments have failed to establish a moratorium to stop the destruction," said Gravatt.

"Every trawl we disrupt, we could be saving coral forests that took hundreds of years to grow."

Contacts
Carmen Gravatt, Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner on board Rainbow Warrior on +872 1302412

Dean Baigent-Mercer communications officer in Auckland 021 790 817

Notes
1. Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Chile, Costa Rica are supporting a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling.

Deepsea Bykill: Flies on a Windshield

© Greenpeace/Pullman

10:30 on a Monday morning. Just an average morning with a beautiful sunrise, in the middle of the Tasman Sea. We're more than a thousand metres above the Challenger Plateau, and hundreds of miles west of New Zealand. This morning, however, instead of just bottom trawlers ravaging the seamounts below, the Rainbow Warrior and its mini-fleet of inflatables are holding vigil.

© Greenpeace/Pullman

I'm sitting in the Waka Nui, bobbing up and down on steely blue waves. Hundreds of seabirds - various albatross, mollywalks, petrels and the odd shearwater are wheeling around our heads, impatiently waiting for the New Zealand bottom trawler Westbay to haul its nets. The Avon patrols next us, ready to capturing the evidence - photographs and video.

Wheels turn, cables groan - the Westbay starts the long haul from the ocean floor. It takes about forty minutes to haul up several kilometres of cable. The birds know this - their circling gets tighter - some seem to be practicing their landing techniques - scooting down for a quick skid on the waves before flapping away again.

Eventually, the two huge rusting trawl doors are pulled from the water. There's all kinds of clanging as they're secured to the stern of the Westbay. Once the crew of the bottom trawler change over the cables to the main winch, the hauling starts again.

The albatross are getting more excited. Until we came out here on the Rainbow Warrior last year, I'd entertained the idea of albatross as solitary animals, feeding on whatever ocean life comes to the surface. But these birds aren't dumb - they know that the presence of a trawler means that soon the sea will be covered in dead marine animals - apparently 'unwanted' by humans.

There is, it seems, such thing as a free lunch.

© Greenpeace/Pullman

The net breaks the surface - supported by yellow buoys. The 'cod end' - the collection area in the bottom of the net - bulges with deep sea life, dragged up from the bottom of the ocean. I can see the green eyes of bottom-dwelling sharks bulging from grey heads squeezed out through mesh. There are sea stars, pressed against the net, like dead flies on a windshield. I can't see much orange roughy in there - the target species the bottom trawlers are after. The albatross are on the water now, squabbling noisily with each other.

Logi steers the boat in closer - Abri and I ready ourselves with landing nets, looking for any bykill falling from the net. All of these creatures are already dead - their insides mashed from a change in more than 100 atmosphere of pressure. Think about it - scuba divers can get the 'bends' if they ascend too rapidly from depths of 40 metres (5 times atmospheric pressure). These fish and invertebrates ascend through more than 20 times that - arriving at the surface with exploding eyes, and swim bladders pushed out through mouths, like little pink and orange balloons.

As we get closer, the force of compressed flesh pushes a few mutilated rattails through the net. They float towards us, and reach out with the nets - but the albatross are professionals. They land, grab, wolf down the fish, and take off - all in lightning fast movement.

The Westbay accelerates and steams off into the distance - along with its entourage of hungry birds.

- Dave

June 06, 2005

PRESS RELEASE: High time for high seas: Time out on bottom trawling key to sustainable oceans

Deep Sea Conservation Coalition Press Release

New York, Monday, June 6'th 2005: As the United Nations Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS) meeting begins today, the international community faces a crisis of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. The high seas make up the majority of the world's oceans and large parts of the high seas are devoid of effective internationally agreed controls for activities such as high seas bottom trawling making it the single biggest area open to abuse and exploitation.

Fishing is stripping the bio-diversity of the world's oceans and primary amongst the unregulated threats facing the deep seas is high seas bottom trawling, a fishing practice universally accepted as the most destructive in use and which wipes out entire ecosystems for the sake of a few commercially valuable species. Scientists estimate that if urgent action is not taken to regulate bottom trawling, most deep sea fish stocks on the high seas caught today will be commercially extinct in 20 years.

For the past three years, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has responded to the UNICPOLOS calls for urgent action to be taken. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) is calling for UNICPOLOS this year to send a strong recommendation to the UNGA for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling.

Matthew Gianni, Political Advisor to the DSCC said: "The tide is turning. UNICPOLOS cannot simply call for action again, it has to play a part in precipitating it and the ground work is now there for that to happen. Countries which had previously opposed and blocked measures to protect the high seas are now changing their positions and we have a real opportunity to finally translate the fine words into a commitment to take concrete action."

The major obstacles to progress thus far have been Iceland and the EU lead by Spain but there has been a strong shift in the stances taken by individual EU countries during the last few months, with Spain (the single biggest high seas bottom trawling nation—at least among those States reporting their catch), accepting that the practice is a highly destructive and proposing limited measures for addressing it.

This week the UNICPOLOS will discuss the contribution of fisheries to sustainable development. Without sustainable and effective management of the world's fisheries and oceans beyond national jurisdiction, deep-sea fisheries, together with many irreplaceable habitats and unique species will be quickly wiped out and many may be lost forever. Matthew Gianni: "It is high time that the high seas were firmly on the agenda for action. Until the global commons of the high seas are subject to proper management, IUU fishing will continue to flourish. Unless bottom trawling in these areas is controlled, there will be very little left to manage. Tackling bottom trawling is the key to unlocking a genuinely sustainable approach."

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is an alliance of over 40 international organizations, representing millions of people in countries around the world. It is calling for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling until the nations of the world can establish strong management measures for deep-sea fisheries and protect biodiversity on the high seas.

For further information contact:
Susan Cavanagh on +1 202 413851 or + 31 621 296 910, www.savethehighseas.org

This is not fishing. This is extinction.

© Ministry of Fisheries NZ

While our friends on the Rainbow Warrior pursue bottom trawlers on the high seas we've also been busy back here in the Greenpeace office in Auckland.

Using New Zealand's 'Official Information Act' we have extracted this incredible image from the Ministry of Fisheries. Taken by a fisheries observer aboard a NZ bottom trawling vessel, the photo shows a piece of gorgonian coral bigger than the two men attempting to untangle it from their bottom trawl net, and you can also see more similar sized pieces still in the net. Gorgonian corals of this size are estimated to be around 500 years old!

© Ministry of Fisheries NZ

These ancient coral 'trees' were then simply dumped overboard. And this is by no means an isolated incident ...we've heard first hand stories from ex fishermen of 4-5 tonne catches of coral repeatedly being bought up by bottom trawl nets and thrown overboard. Clearly bottom trawling is causing terrible damage to deep sea life. It is like clearfelling ancient rainforests ... something that is illegal above sea level in New Zealand.

Bottom trawl nets can be up to 40 metres wide and are dragged along the sea floor. Imagine the kinds of deep sea creatures that live amongst the coral and imagine what happens to them as the bottom trawls rip through their habitat.

This type of 'fishing' is considered by scientists to be the greatest threat to deep sea biodiversity and results in high levels of incidentally caught species, known as 'bycatch' or - we think more accurately - 'bykill'.

Our team in New York at the United Nations meeting this week will be using this image and others like it to illustrate their conversations with politicians and officials in their quest for a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters.

click here to view the whole image.

- Nick Young

Auckland, New Zealand.

First Bottom Trawler Encounter

© Greenpeace/Pullman

It's been an interesting weekend on board the Rainbow Warrior. On Saturday afternoon, far out into the International waters of the Tasman Sea, we tracked down the Tasman Viking, a bottom trawler from New Zealand - one that we'd found out here last year.

We stuck near the bottom trawler all night, and this morning launched our inflatables to document the destruction being carried out on the ocean floor - in this case, a net full of deep sea creatures. Carmen, our campaigner, first hailed the Tasman Viking on the radio, informing them of our intentions.

However, after one short trawl, they hauled their net in - with a small but significant amount of fish inside - and radioed us back to say that they were now heading back towards New Zealand.

Interestingly enough, while our inflatables were in the water, a worker on the fishing boat displayed a small sign that said "We are UNFAO ratified" - proving that the fishing industry are still really missing the point.

This sign implies that because the Tasman Viking follows the recommendations of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, then there's no problem with their fishing practices. There most certainly is a problem. The continuing destruction of deep sea life throughout oceans worldwide illustrates that current international oceans management is completely inadequate. In fact, it's fundamentally flawed - something that the fishing industry is happy to exploit.

Current regulations require trawlers to declare their catch from this area. In effect, this means they can wipe out as much deep sea life, and take as many fish as they like, without breaking any of the current rules - as long as they let the government (in this case New Zealand) - know how much they took. It is open slather, unregulated and unchecked - which is exactly why we need a moratorium. Such a 'time out' would not only halt this wholesale destruction, allowing scientists to assess the deep sea environment, but it would also give the world's governments an opportunity to create a proper management system - one that actually protects both fish stocks, and the rest of the deep sea ecosystem.

Anyway - we're still out here, hundreds of miles from land, on the lookout for more bottom trawlers. Today was a pretty comfortable day at sea - the swell has dropped, the sun was shining, and we had the sails out. Even the worst of the seasickness victims have started looking a bit chirpier.

More as it happens...

- Carmen & Dave

Meet Erin: Communications Officer

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Erin Farley

From: Australia

Job:
I'm working as a communications officer on board - I write press releases and other materials, and work with the videographer, photographer and campaigner to make sure what happens out on the water gets back to the team at home and out to the rest of the world.

After gaining a journalism degree and some experience working in television news and radio, I got a job as a media assistant with Greenpeace in Australia. As at first a media assistant and then a communications officer I got to work on a huge range of incredible campaigns. Favourite memories include climbing the building that houses the Sydney nuclear reactor as a protest against Australia's nuclear industry, and working on the campaign to help Papua New Guinea communities keep their forests safe.

After a few years away from Greenpeace, I've been lucky enough to get time off from a new job to come on board the Rainbow Warrior. Already it's proving to be a once in a lifetime experience - it's an extraordinarily special feeling to be able to act on one's concerns for the environment in such an exciting and enriching way.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Okay, I know this is nerdy, I've got 16 hours of recordings of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy to listen to in case I need some time out, but so far so good - I'm only up to episode 2.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
Well I always say my sense of direction is similar to a goldfish - Luckily I've not been consulted in any of the navigational decisions.

- Erin

[Er, I thought it was bad memories that were attributed to goldfish, not poor sense of direction? - Dave]

June 04, 2005

Meet Wooly: Video Cameraman

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: David (aka Wooly)

From: Australia

Job:
On the Rainbow Warrior I am the Video Cameraman. And at home (which is in Adelaide, South Australia), I do the same thing. I own a small company freelancing for most of the television broadcasters.

What other jobs have you done?
I do quite a bit of filming underwater, so that's how got I started with Greenpeace. A cameraman was needed to film underwater, on the 1998 Blue Fin Tuna campaign.

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
My new Personal Digital Assistant which my wife bought for me. It does everything except my pantry duty and get me a well earned beer at the end of a day at sea!

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
A Great White Shark.

Anything else you'd like to say?
I live in Adelaide, South Australia with my wife, Lara, (who is very understanding)! and our dog, CJ and 2 cats, Mulder and Scully. (It's not our favorite show or anything)! We both work pretty hard and we enjoy what little time we have together. I love to travel and my work has given me the opportunity to do this. I have worked extensively throughout Asia, filming everything from war torn Cambodia, the opening up of Vietnam to the western world and the hand over of Hong Kong back to the Chinese. One of ther most wonderful memories in recent times was diving with a pod of False Killer whales last year, on the Rainbow Warrior's Tour of the Pacific. I film for Greenpeace because I believe in what we are campaigning for. This campaign in particular is extremely important. If the fishing industry goes unchecked, then we have all got very little time on this planet!

- Wooly

Splash down!

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Earlier today, I was reading about the meteorology of these waters, in Deep New Zealand by Peter Batson. Thanks to weather coming from the 'Roaring Forties' - which refers, of course, to the stormy latitudes of the southern hemisphere - New Zealand's ocean weather tends towards the dreadful. Even the Three Kings Islands, situated off the North Cape of the North Island, are continually battered and can only claim an average, seven days of calm weather every year and an appalling seventy-fives days of gales!

None of these facts will come as any surprise to the crew of the Rainbow Warrior. For the last few days, we've been been battered by strong winds wipping up from the Roaring Forties. Our little ship has been pitching in a see-saw fashion - below deck, we're like astronauts in a space-station, clambering our way through doorways. In this case, however, we're being subjected to gravity, several times over. Even as I write this, I've nearly been flung across the radio room by one particularly large pitch.

Some of the hardier sailors have been unplussed by the weather conditions, putting away meals like each one was their last. Carmen, in particular, is beginning to worry about her prodigious food intake. Other crew members have been keeping a low profile - resigning themselves to their bunks and very simple diets. I'll have to confess that I spent yesterday feeling pretty queasy, and this morning relented, and took some anti-seasickness medication, which worked a treat. Lisa, our medic, has been patrolling the ship, making sure that any ailing folk are taking in enough fluids and food (when possible!)

Still, it's a quiet friday night on the Rainbow Warrior - but with some decent weather due over the next few days, we're sure to see people returning to good form.

In the meantime, I've included some nausea-inducing photographs, for your vicarious pleasure...

- Dave

The Gods of Wind and Sea

© Greenpeace/Walsh

A couple of days ago, as we headed out to sea in search of bottom trawlers, Kate, our assistant cook, drew us together on the bow of the Rainbow Warrior. She performed a Maori blessing or Mihi - a greeting and showing of respect, if you like, to the atua (gods) of wind and sea, informing them of our journey, and our goals. She also read out a whakatauki, which went something along the lines of 'may your sea be calm, and pleasant and your path glisten before you'.

As we stood on the bow, we had a a near-perfect rainbow behind us. We didn't plan it that way, - and it might seem like these 'coincidences' happen a little too often, but there's been a long Greenpeace history of rainbows appearing at fortuitous or meaningful moments. One of the founders of Greenpeace - the late Bob Hunter - was one the first to start recording these rainbow moments. On last year's voyage into the heart of the Tasman Sea, we found our first trawler - the Amatal Voyager - sitting right at the end of a rainbow. Typical!

But back to the present - if we were to learn anything from our chat with the gods of weather, it was perhaps humility. We had to retreat to shelter, a sudden shower of cold rain pelted down on the deck - perhaps as an acknowledgement of sorts?

With spirits undampened, Kate, Logi, Carmen and Chris then performed a song, Nga Iwi E - a pacific activist waiata (song) originally from New Caledonia, but translated into Maori. Less than an hour later, the dolphins showed up...

- Dave

Dolphin Frenzy

© Greenpeace/Walsh

As if being surrounded by rainbows wasn't enough - yesterday was our first significant day of dolphin sightings, with a small pod playing about in the Rainbow Warrior's bow wave for a while. Despite strong winds and a rolling swell, several of us watched them ducking and diving, breaking the surface and even chasing each other.

© GREENPEACE / Walsh

After the dolphins had peeled off - bored of playing, or maybe gone chasing fish - I headed down to the radio room. While stowing my camera gear, I casually glanced out the porthole, and noticed a cloud of white seabirds concentrated over a small patch of sea. Some of the birds were hurtling into the water, in pursuit of some kind of fishy prey. I ran up on deck, where Malcolm (photographer) already has his telephoto on. Through our camera lenses we could see that the birds - some of which were gannets - were cashing in on a feeding frenzy stirred up my some dolphins. The water was boiling with the dorsal fins of dolphins and high-speed seabirds crashing into the surface.

I had only seen film footage of this kind of thing before - so it was pretty amazing to see it firsthand, even if it was only in the distance. The dolphins chase their prey, 'cornering' them into a spinning cylinder of fish, surrounded by dolphins. As the dolphins grab potential escapees, the seabirds get in on the act, diving deep below the surface, and coming up with a mouthful of fish. It's a neat demonstration of the food chain at work!

- Dave

Taking it to the top

While the Rainbow Warrior and crew are out on the coal face, and our team is on the ground in Nelson, we also have a team in New York negotiating the intricacies of the 'United Nations Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea'. The United Nations is after all where the power lies. Greenpeace and the Deepsea Coalition is asking for a global United Nations led moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters.

So, just as we did in 2004, we're going to the top... Watch this space for Karen's updates from New York!

You can read about our 2004 visit to the UN here and you can watch the webcast of Greenpeace campaigner Karen Sack's historic 2004 address to the general assembly here.

Meet Emilse: The Rainbow Warrior's Cook

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Emilse

From: Italy

Job:
On the ship, cook. In normal life, I work in music and cinema production. I have also been and Italian teacher for Erasmus students.

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
I've been sailing for three years with a sailing boat from Greenpeace Spain, called the Zorba On board, I have also been working as cook, in an educational project showing Greenpeace activists how we work on boats, and what do we do to maintain clean seas and environment.

What's your essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Lots of energy and smiles for the crew, and some paracetamol for my headaches...

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
I would like to be a star fish, attaching myself to the deep of the sea, taking as much colours as I could...

Anything else you'd like to say?
Just that I would really like a sea free of plastics, - there's too much plastic in our lives... don't you think so?

- Emilse

June 02, 2005

Meet Hans: Radio Operator

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Hans

From: Holland

Job: On the ship - radio operator. In 'normal life' software/radio engineering research and development for Greenpeace. I've also been a merchant marine radio operator, software engineer for a Dutch press agency, and have done logistics for Medicins Sans Frontieres

How did you come to be on this Rainbow Warrior for this trip?
Greenpeace needed a radio operator for the Rainbow Warrior - I was working in the office and ready for a break, and ready to join a ship again.

What's your essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
A sense of humour

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
A flying fish

Anything else you'd like to say?
I love working with a team of people from all over the world, specifically on a ship (which makes it extra special), doing something worthwhile and having fun doing it.

- Hans

Back here on land in a small town with a large fishing port

The Nelson info stall © Greenpeace/Earnshaw

While the Rainbow Warrior sails for the high seas, back here in Aotearoa we have a small team on the ground in Nelson doing information stalls on the street and at the local markets.

Nelson is home to the largest fishing port in the southern hemisphere and to some of the bottom trawlers we found in international waters in the Tasman last year. It's a small town so the fishing industry is an important part of the local economy. Fishing is BIG BUSINESS in Nelson.

Not long after the stalls began a bunch of large blokes wearing white over-alls and gumboots turned up at our info stall in the Motueka and, without so much as a by your leave, rolled the stall, kicked over the table and made off with all the info and posters!

Big readers maybe.

The Nelson info stall © Greenpeace/Earnshaw

But undeterred, our team were back in Motueka the following weekend and nothing similar happened and indeed found that they received a lot of support and respect from local folk simply for turning up again and not being scared off by the scare tactics. More people stopped in on the stall to find out what we're talking about that day than any other day before!

So it was with a little trepidation that I found myself stopping off in Nelson to join the stall team and do some time on the streets. I started on a stall in downtown Nelson on Friday morning. It was a cold and rainy day but the streets still bustled with people going about their business.

Despite the cold and rain lots of people were interested enough to stop talk and almost all supported the campaign. Word had also gotten around about the 'Motueka incident' so many wanted to know more about it and to express their disgust at such behaviour.

It's really interesting talking to people on the street about the issue. And very worthwhile because, despite our best efforts, the ask for a 'moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters (or 'on the high seas') is sometimes a little difficult to communicate simply on a poster. Once we explain that it is not fishing per se that we are campaigning against but specifically the unregulated and relentless deep sea bottom trawling that is occurring in international waters, and that we don't want a total ban but rather a temporary moratorium to give scientists enough time to work out what is down there and how it can be protected, very few people disagree with what we're asking for.

Most interesting perhaps is the many ex fishermen who come up to the stall and say things like: "yeah and that's not the half of it" ... "I got out of it [bottom trawling] because I couldn't stand what we were doing out there" ... "you haven't seen the worst of it" .. and "good luck ... it's almost too late ... something's got to be done soon out there before there's nothing left".

Some of the stories are chilling but it's heartening to know that we've got the support of so many people who've seen what's going on first hand.

- Nick Young

The Seamount dwelling 'Nail Crab' (Lithodes longispina) © NIWA

June 01, 2005

Meet Carmen: Campaigner

© Greenpeace/Pullman

Name: Carmen Gravatt

From: New Zealand

Job: Oceans campaigner

Kia ora. Just like last year, I'm the lead oceans campaigner on the Rainbow Warrior's return trip campaigning on high seas bottom trawling. My career with Greenpeace began many moons ago, when I was a member of Greenteam, an environmental youth network set up by Greenpeace to teach New Zealanders about campaigning. Ten years later, I have been lucky enough to work in a range of roles in different countries. I have been an action logistics coordinator with Greenpeace in Australia, New Zealand, India, South Pacific and a toxics campaigner in Australia and New Zealand. However, last year's expedition to the Tasman Sea stands as my most rewarding Greenpeace experience. It was shocking to witness firsthand what we had only talked about before AD the destruction of incredible undersea worlds, ancient coral forests and sea life. The ultimate satisfaction of my job is being able to show the world proof of what is happening out here in international waters, and to persuade governments to take stock and listen.

Growing up on the rugged west coast of New Zealand has given me a connection me with the oceans. But it is increasingly obvious that we are taking too much from our seas, and in the process, causing extraordinary damage. I hope that our expedition helps people understand the scale of destruction that is happening beyond our shores, and inspires them to demand change.

If you were a fish, which one would you be? This is a hard question. Since starting on this campaign, I have come across pictures of some incredible and strange creatures. But I have to choose the blob fish. Not that I necessarily want to be one, but it's my favourite so I couldn't possible vote for anything else. It truly is the strangest fish I have ever seen. It's just so ugly you can't help but love it.20

Essential survival item for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior? 'Jandals' (flip-flops) and 'Ugg Boots' (sheepskin-lined boots). You can go anywhere is the world with that combination.

- Carmen