Hélène - Campaigner from Environmental Justice Foundation | Home | Stan - Logistics (Cat Herding)

I joined the crew of the Rainbow Warrior in February 1980, and worked as a full time photographer for Greenpeace until the end of 1984. During this intense period, I participated in most of the sea campaigns; nuclear transports, Spanish whaling, Canadian seal hunts, nuclear waste dumpings, chemical dumping, nuclear weapons testing in Moruroa, Nevada and the Soviet Union...

When I was not on board, I created the Paris-based "Greenpeace Photo International" - our picture library that was later moved to London and is now operating from Amsterdam.

I then worked for seven years as a photojournalist for the Associated Press, followed by a period of fascinating photo assignments for the British Environmental Investigation Agency. I now work as an independent photographer based in the Loire Valley (France) and my pictures are distributed by the French photo press agency Réa. During all those years I maintained links with Greenpeace through various trips and actions.

To be back on a Greenpeace ship, 26 years after my first action on the Rainbow Warrior gives me a very strong sense of continuity: like being part of an ongoing story. I still love the mix of nationalities (there are 15 on board) and the fact that by opening our eyes, ears and heart, we can all cohabitate peacefully on ships during very long sea passages

I was lucky enough to be in Brighton in 1982 when the International Whaling Commission voted the first worldwide moratorium on all commercial whaling. This remains one of the happiest memories of my activist life. Especially because the voting majority of the member countries had been reversed by only one vote and that one vote came from the place where we had to campaign for so long: Spain. This was a tremendous victory for Greenpeace quickly followed by a few more, like the total ban on nuclear dumping in the Atlantic.

On this trip, I hope we will be able to expose those high-seas pirates that no one ever bothers to control - but I will be careful not to forget that the men on those rusty fishing boats that we are filming and photographing are too often the underpaid second victims (after the fish stocks) of an ugly money-making business. As always, those responsible are safely sitting behind a desk thousands of miles away.

Greenpeace has become an amazing counter-power. No government can ignore it. Recent examples include last month re-routing toward France of the decommissioned aircraft carrier Clemenceau, full of asbestos, that was bound to be scrapped in India. Also, this week a court in Cherbourg passed an injunction enforcing that Areva (World's first nuclear operator) has to pay Greenpeace €10,000 per day unless it communicates within one week the contracts made with a Dutch electricity company to reprocess nuclear waste - imported onto French territory.

So let's all teach our children to switch off the light when they leave an empty room and let's close Guantanamo...

Too much to do, no time to lose...

- Pierre Gleizes, March 2006

Its really cool to know what you been doing along your path life. I wish I can contribute my knowledge and energy to this world