The Esperanza has just left Honiara in the Solomon Islands where I joined the ship so that we can keep you up to date on all of our adventures in the Pacific. I have replaced Jess, the webby from the Greenpeace USA office, who has reluctantly returned to her desk in Washington DC. If you've missed whatś been going on in the Pacific over the past few weeks you can check out her blog here.

The ship spent 6 days in the Solomon Islands and I arrived on Saturday morning just 2 days before we left and yet it feels like I´ve already been here for a long time. Memories from being on board before came flooding back as if it was just yesterday but it's nearly 3 years since I left the ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I have not sailed with most of the crew on board before and it's always a great pleasure to make new friends and hear new stories (speaking of stories, the photographer keeps trying to have me believe he has a chicken in his cabin!). There are people on the ship from every corner of the world and many from this particular region. But it's funny that I often I hear claims that only western folks sail around on Greenpeace ships telling other countries what to do with their environment.

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Posted by Lisa at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It makes a very convenient headline for lazy journalists - "Former Greenpeace founder supports nuclear". It's also the lead the nuclear industry pays a lot of money to Patrick Moore for (actually an early Greenpeace member, but that's a bit weak for newspapers and less valuable to dirty industry paying the fees). The US magazine Mother Jones has published a good read on how Moore has long been a well paid mouth piece for any dirty industry willing to pay his fees.

Here's a few choice quotes:

Now, between sips of pinot grigio, he's offering up dubious factoids: Nuclear waste is safe enough to store in a backyard swimming pool, the areas around the plants are "as clean as nature preserves," and Three Mile Island was a success story because no radiation was emitted. He dismisses anti-nuke arguments as "illogical imaginary fears."

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Posted by Tom at 3:35 PM | Permalink

“Ladies and Gentlemen your attention please: the Dong Won, Mitsubishi, Moon Marine, Azzopardi and Ricardo Fuentes stalls are now closed.” And they were. It felt great knowing that the ever so slightly familiar voices coming airport style over the audio soundsystem were speaking the truth. We did it. Shut down the stalls of 5 companies – including the world’s biggest tuna supplier (Mitsubishi) - driving the global tuna crisis.

So it was business closed for these tuna suppliers. Not just that but the ensuing chaos – including overwhelmed police blocking the way meant entire halls stopped trading for much of the day.

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Posted by Jo at 10:38 AM | Permalink

I don't know if greenwash was invented by US corporations, but there does seem to be a lot more of it there than in the rest of the world. So it's good news that Greenpeace USA has launched stopgreenwash.org to track the filthy stuff.

Greenwash is about misleading people rather than changing products and business practices to be better for the environment. It's also one of those words that gets thrown around a lot. Check out StopGreenwash's straightforward criteria. And if you spot something you thing might be greenwash, you can report it here.

Posted by Andrew at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last night, as the sun was setting, I got my first glimpse of land in 3 weeks. When I woke up, I could see that we were passing islands. The Esperanza pulled into Honiara, Solomon Islands this morning. The ship and crew were greeted with a traditional welcome, which if I hadn't gotten a head's up earlier probably would have scared me, a little. In the challenge part of the welcome, island warriors wave long spears around and scream at you.

The entire crew were led by the captain off the ship and the warriors continued screaming and waving the spears. The proper response to this challenge is to hold still and stare straight ahead without a reaction. After a few minutes of challenge, the warriors all walked to one side and the captain walked forward. We had passed the test. There was some press there and a group of men playing pan flute drums to greet us.

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Posted by Jess at 12:00 AM | Permalink

We've had a couple requests here about the music in our new viral video, Onslaught(er), which takes on Dove's use of palm oil in their beauty products.

Palm plantations are destroying rainforests, which in turn is contributing to global warming, and Unilever, Dove's owners, are one of the biggest consumers of palm oil in the world.

Yes, yes, some of you have said -- but what's that rocking backing track that sets the machinegun pace?

Well now, since you ask, the lyrics were written by the new kid on the block here in the Amsterdam Secret Mountain Activism Laboratory -- video producer Daniel Bird -- and recorded by indie band Ohm Square.

All over our open-plan office for the last two days as people have opened up the video we've been hearing that slack-string intro, those chainsaw-distorted guitars, that seriously edgy voice dripping with ripsaw attitude.

Daniel, recently relocated from Prague, explains: "They're the Massive Attack of the Czech Republic."

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Posted by Brian at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Go take a look -- Search YouTube for "Dove" -- and you'll see our new video top of the list. I wonder what the marketing folk at Unilever (the company behind Dove soap) will think when they see that.

Last month we polled Greenpeace supporters around the world, in advance of the international Dove campaign we just launched. Around 30,000 people responded, and the results were extremely encouraging. Asked should corporations be held responsible for their climate impact and the impact of their suppliers, an overwhelming 97% agreed or strongly agreed. Could it be any clearer?

Greenpeace activists swung into action at Unilever's buildings yesterday. Because Dove, and other brands, are so well known though, there's lots we can all do online (without a monkey suit). More than 1 in 12 supporters polled has a blog or webpage. Links to the video are already making the rounds on Facebook and Orkut. We're only just getting warmed up.

So if you're a Greenpeace supporter, an environmentalist, an activist, know that you're in good company here. And if you say that you're a "good company" (as Unilever claims to be), then you'd better match words with deeds!

Posted by Eoin at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today, we're launching the next stage in our campaign to protect the rainforests of Indonesia from the expansion of the palm oil industry and direct actions are taking place in London, Rome and Rotterdam. Our volunteers, dressed as orang-utans, are currently climbing over the Italian, Dutch and UK headquarters of the company behind Dove, which uses palm oil as one of its ingredients. Our latest research shows that Unilever, the makers of Dove, is buying palm oil from companies that are destroying valuable rainforest and peatland areas, which is bad news not only for the millions of people who depend on them for their way of life and endangered species such as the orang-utan, but also for the global climate.

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Posted by Jamie at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

At 8:30 this morning, I stood on the deck of the Esperanza staring out at a ship in the distance. We had spotted a fishing vessel in international waters and had sent a team to see if they were actually fishing. As the information came in, we learned that it was a purse seiner from the U.S. and it just started to pull in the net. Purse seine vessels surround schools of fish with curtain-like nets to catch tuna. A rope along the bottom of the net is pulled like a drawstring and the whole catch is hauled onboard. A purse seine net can be over one hundred meters long and catch up to 3000 tons of fish in one trip.

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Posted by Jess at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This morning I woke up still pretty sore from spending a whole day in the RHIBS on the open ocean Wednesday. I glanced over at the alarm clock and realized I had more than an hour before I had to get up for breakfast. I looked out the porthole of my cabin and I could see the sky starting to turn bright pink. I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunrise. I decided to stay in bed a little longer and my mind drifted back to our day of action on the South Pacific.

I thought about how fast the Koren purse seiner was moving next to our boats (doing almost 13 knots), about the fishermen watching us from the deck, the salt water spray that was pelting me
in the face but my mind kept flashing back to the flying fish that were escorting us to the Korean purse seiner.

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Posted by Jess at 5:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today I witnessed the kind of fishing practices that are threatening to drive the
tuna fisheries in the South Pacific to near collapse. In a time span shorter than
a normal day at work, I witnessed both a purse seiner and a FAD (Fish Aggregation Device) both set in international waters, both by foreign vessels.

At 9am, a Korean purse seiner appeared a short distance from the Esperanza. After Tweety went up to confirm the location and nature of the fishing vessel, we launched two boats and headed to the Korean purse seiner. Our Korean translator contacted the fishing vessel and informed them they must immediately leave the area we are defending as a no-take marine reserve.While the conversation appeared to be very polite, the only change I noticed was the vessel speeding up and the crew seeming to be getting their fire hoses ready. As the crew from the Korean ship came out on deck, we deployed banners demanding an end to the overfishing of the Pacific Commons.

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Posted by Jess at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I'll admit it. I never watched his movie, never saw the slideshow. Thought they were great for other people, but I already know how dangerous climate change is. Plus, I'm a busy busy person. (I mean, aren't we all?) Still... Always felt like I really should - what with the Oscar and the Nobel prize and all.

At last, someone has solved my plight. Thanks to George Spyros for this 2 minute condensed version of Gore's latest talk (given at the TED conference):

Found it via Treehugger where you can find the full 22 minute version, and a 30 second out take with the classic line...

"Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs collapse.... Developing tar sands and coal shale is the equivalent."

Posted by Andrew at 6:38 PM | Permalink

Some exciting news from the Mediterranean... On Monday, after a day of demonstrations by Greek fishermen, against a government decision to allow trawling in near-shore waters, 19 fishermen started a hunger strike outside the ministry building in favour of sustainable fisheries and marine reserves!

As a result of the demonstration, the Greek Fisheries Minister had to cut short his attendance at yesterday's EU Council meeting and fly back to Greece. He arrived at his Ministry at 1 in the morning, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and a national TV crew. The negotiations lasted until 4am, when he admitted that he was unwilling to revoke the decision on trawling but announced a reassessment of fisheries management as part of the development of a new strategy.

He offered to come out with a public statement and letter to the European Commission explaining that his earlier decision to allow trawlers in near shore waters is in fact only temporary and that he is inviting the fishermen to a meeting to decide on a new National Fisheries Strategy!

The coastal fishermen stopped the hunger strike and are hoping for a better deal in the meeting after Greek Easter (next 15 days). They are considering this a victory.

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Posted by Lisa at 2:33 PM | Permalink

Big news here in the South Pacific today. The president of Palau announced the Fisheries Protection Act of 2008. With an acknowledgment that large scale fishing operations are responsible for the decline of the world’s fish stocks, especially tuna, President Remengesau has proposed a bill that would protect migratory fish in Palau’s waters. The proposed bill would prohibit the commercial export of fish like tuna, billfish, and sharks from Palau and would ban foreign fishing vessels from Palau waters.

“If these activities are allowed to continue unchecked, the world faces the collapse of the marine ecosystem that supports the planet. It is Palau’s obligation as an international leader in environmental conservation to take this step,” the president said.

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Posted by Jess at 5:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

© Greenpeace/Naomi Toyoda

Japan's factory whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru was "welcomed" into Tokyo earlier today, by Junichi and our team from Greenpeace Japan, along with the word "failed" to accompany the ubiquitous and Orwellian "RESEARCH" painted on its hull.

During its five months at sea, the Nisshin Maruwas responsible for taking 551 minke whales from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary - far less than the 1035 whales planned, but more than a hundred than were killed three years ago. Our ship, the Esperanza, shutdown Japan's entire whaling operation for 15 days, during a 4300-mile chase of the Nisshin Maru across the Southern Ocean. The whalers are blaming the protestors (that'd be us then) for missing their target.

The whalers had also planned to hunt 50 endangered fin whales, and 50 vulnerable humpbacks; but they'd barely reached the Southern Ocean when international outrage forced Japan's government to back down on the iconic humpbacks. And as for the endangered fin whales - none were killed at all, which is extremely good news. Before the hunt, Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research (the agency that runs the "scientific" whaling programme) were mouthing off about a 'rapid increase' in fin whales (no whales reproduce "rapidly"... they're not like rabbits). Yesterday, however, fisheries agency officials reported that it wasn't possible to kill any fin whales - because they couldn't find any! So much for the rapid increase - just another sign of their failed research programme.

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Posted by Dave at 11:56 AM | Permalink

A site named Wikio ranked, "influential blogs in the UK blogosphere". Believe it or not, we're number 96. Wooohoo!

Please link to us from your blog to help us reach our goal of 95th place. (Watch out Adrian, we're up and coming!)

Posted by Andrew at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well let me tell you, August in the district ain't got nothin' on an afternoon on deck in the South Pacific. It is hot as anything here. We've been sailing for 4 days now and we've spent most of it preparing for our tour through the South Pacific. The days are long, sometimes starting as early as 5 am for some and often going past our last meeting of the day at 7:30 p.m.

A few times a day, I catch myself staring out into the South Pacific in amazement. At night, the stars here are unbelievable, seriously it feels like you are inside of a planetarium. When my neck starts to hurt from looking up, I look down and stare at the water that is pushed out of the stern propeller of the ship. It sparkles almost as bright as the sky, the plankton shines bright with phosphorescence and every few seconds a bright globe of a jellyfish passes thorough and shines for about 10 seconds as it moves away from the ship. The sunrises and sunsets are remarkable and the water is a color between sapphires and aquamarine. We've seen dolphins, flying fish, tuna jumping, birds and my personal favorite; a little baby black tip reef shark.

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Posted by Jess at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Meet the private security firm that spied on Greenpeace and other environmental outfits for corporate clients. A tale of intrigue, infiltration, and dumpster-diving."

Just published on the Mother Jones website, an intriguing article by James Ridgeway about private espionage by an American security company called Beckett Brown International (later called S2i) against the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Along with this excellent four-page article is a raft of support pdf documents for download.

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Posted by Dave at 12:13 PM | Permalink

Consider this… Olive Ridley turtles rely on an inexplicable, in-built navigation system that guides them, when it’s time for them to reproduce, back to the precise coast on which they were born -- whether it's still there or not. And if it ain't there, baaaaad luck, turtle.

Now consider something else… The proposed port at Dhamra in India, being built by the giant Tata group and others, threatens a nesting site that is amongst the last honeymoon suites for the remaining Olive Ridleys, a highly-endangered species that swims all the way there from as far away as Australia.

Tata isn't just a car in India. It's an ubiquitous brand, which many in India believe does good things for the country. But when it comes to turtles, their plans to stop animal sex on the beach has just got to be stopped.

As our man in Bengaluru, "Gene Peace", wrote to us today, the online campaign they just launched has taken off like a hare:

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Posted by Brian at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

In a long Guardian article from a couple of weeks back I noticed a fine example of the favourite "consumer choice" excuse of corporations under pressure to change their ways. The massive German car maker Volkswagen has more efficient versions (blue motion) of their popular models but doesn't sell very many:

The VW Polo BlueMotion gives off just 99g of CO2 per km. But this year VW envisages selling 5,000 BlueMotion Polos as against 36,000 conventional ones. Some of this is market reticence, but some is down to the increased price - an extra £500. Surely a company that takes the environment seriously would withdraw the old version or price the more environmentally friendly one equally?

'We wouldn't be doing ourselves any favours if we withdrew customer choice or disguised the increased costs of BlueMotion cars,' says VW's UK press spokesman Paul Buckett.

Notice the weasel words of "consumer choice". VW definitely would be doing the planet a favour if they just sold the more efficient version. Also VW and all other car companies spend fortunes every day on adverts, billboards and marketing to create the very consumer demand (for large, fast, inefficient cars) they then use as an excuse not to act.

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Posted by Tom at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last week journalists revealed that Merkel and Sarkozy are planning to water down EU legislation tackling CO₂ emissions from cars. That's why we launched a petition on Friday, calling on other top European politicians to resist. The petition has been signed by almost 16,000 people at time of writing.

Jocelyn from Australia posted news of our cars petition on care2.com, early this morning, and now it's the top environmental story. It's clearly an international issue.

Many people look to Germany for leadership on tackling greenhouse gas emissions. Angela Merkel gets climate change, but the chemistry between Germany's government and the German luxury car industry is clouding her judgement.

Posted by Eoin at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I once read that when the Apollo 8 astronauts made the first orbit of the moon, the "Earthrise" that they witnessed was such an unexpected wonder that it introduced complete chaos to their scripted-to-the-minute schedule. They forgot about radio check in, they forgot about telemetry and task lists. They just went gah-gah and snap-happy with the cameras, as they witnessed something that all their planning and training hadn't prepared them for: a sight no human had ever seen.

Only 24 human beings have seen the Earth in its totality from space. But the images that they brought back were a monumentally important event in human history -- the chance for us to see the beautiful blue marble we inhabit in all its vulnerable isolation.

For those of us who haven't been to the moon, there's Google Earth.

And thanks to Google's Outreach program, which is coaching charities and non-profits and activist groups in how to create their own layers of information and bundling them in with the application, Greenpeace now has an initial set of datapoints that draw the link between climate change and forest destruction, bundled right into the Global Awareness layer that comes with the free software.

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Posted by Brian at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

What happens when a cat, a dog, a mouse, a rabbit, a gorilla, a walrus and a snowman accuse themselves of being bandits?

The result is that a court throws out an injunction and states the right of demonstration for the environment and public health.

This is what happened. On the 30th of November last year, 12 Greenpeace activists entered the coal power station in Brindisi (Southern Italy), Italy's biggest coal power station and the biggest polluter with its 15 million tons of CO2 produced yearly. They wanted to highlight the plan of the biggest Italian energy company, ENEL, to increase the coal energy production by 5.000 MW. This would mean adding 20 million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every year, making it impossible for Italy to cut the 100 million tons of CO2 necessary to meet the Kyoto protocol.

Video of the action in Brindisi

A few days after, our activists received an injunction from the Police Chief which described them as "a danger to society" which banned them from the local area for the next three years. It was effectively a "no public protest" injunction in a free society. Normally, criminals or mafia affiliates are considered a "danger to society". This was the first time that Italian police used such an injunction for a peaceful demonstration.

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Posted by Giona at 7:51 PM | Permalink

You see the lengths we go to bring you, our dear readers, the absolute latest developments – here is one of our climbers hundreds of feet up a chemical plant chimney who has even forsaken holding on to use both hands to type out a entry……

If you read German you can check out the resulting blog or more images of the action. In short due to Greenpeace pressure 3 massive chemical companies have been forced to pay for the clean up of a Swiss toxic dump they created. Novartis has paid up for the clean up fund but Ciba & Syngenta have so far refused to pay.

Posted by Tom at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)