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)