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!
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.
Hi there
Keep up the good work. It is so necessary to do the kinds of protests that you do and I really admire what you do. Cheers and Good luck, Sue
Posted by: sue rawson at June 8, 2005 06:02 PM
Recently in Lofoten, Norway, we got similar comments from the local fishermen: "if only you knew what we've seen... "
Many had witnessed how big trawls (without the nets) were dragged across the reefs in order to make them nice, flat and "trawlable". They’re like underwater clear-cuts, and those "forests" are gone forever.
The "heavy readers" in white overalls also seem to be the same everywhere! :)
