4 October 2006
Emily - Onboard logistics coordinator
From: Australia
What is your job on the Esperanza?
My job on board the board is to work with the campaign team and the captain to find the fishing boats that we are looking for out here in the Pacific. This involves analysing all the data that we have and planning our route for the ship and the searching work we are doing with our helicopter.
What are you looking forward to most in this campaign?
The countries of the Pacific face such a huge challenge to patrol their own territorial waters. These tiny and very poor countries have some of the largest areas of territorial waters to manage in the world. So, I am hoping that our work here will help them protect this incredibly valuable resource.
Have you been on a Greenpeace ship before?
Yes - I have been working on the Greenpeace ships for over ten years in a range of different roles. In the 1990's, I spent five years working as a deckhand on the Rainbow Warrior and a number of other Greenpeace ships. Since then I have done a lot of work as an onboard logistics coordinator and as also as a project coordinator organising ship tours with many different Greenpeace offices around the world.
How or why did you get involved with Greenpeace?
I started with Greenpeace when I was a university student in 1992. Originally I was fundraising for them as a way to help pay my way through my studies - but very soon I got involved in the campaign work they were doing. When I graduated I ran away to sea on the Rainbow Warrior as a deckhand to work on an overfishing campaign in South America. I think it was the fact that as an organisation Greenpeace is actually able to get out into the world to confront environmental problems where they are happening that I find inspirational.
What was your best experience with Greenpeace so far?
I have had so many amazing experiences with Greenpeace over the last 15 years its hard to say which is the best. One that stands out for me was in the Solomon Islands a few years ago.
The Rainbow Warrior went to visit a small village that the local Greenpeace team had been working with for many years, helping them establish a small scale eco-forestry project. The project involves the local community doing very selective and environmentally managed tree felling in their traditional lands.
By starting this small scale industry the community was able to kick out a big industrial logging company and were making enough money to build good houses in their village and a school for the local children. It was inspiring to see that there are solutions to huge problems, like industrial logging, that both save the forests for future generations and also provide enough income for local communities to support themselves on their own lands.
What do you like most about your work on the ship?
Having the ships is an amazing tool. To actually get out to the places where the environmental problem is occurring, and take action or bear witness is not something that many other groups are able to do. We can do this and by telling the story of what we are doing - we can bring other people with us on these journeys and give them a chance to see what is going on.
The other part of working on the ships that I find inspirational is the amazing diversity of people you get to work with. There are people from many different nationalities and from a huge range of backgrounds - from engineers and helicopter pilots to photographers and doctors.
And least?
I really enjoying being on the ship but after a few months I do miss being able to go for a walk, to feel earth, instead of steel, beneath my feet and the smell, sound and the look of trees.
If you were not on the Esperanza at this moment where would you probably be instead and what would you be doing?
I would be at home - I live in the Blue Mountains in Australia (just west of Sydney). I am in the process of fixing up an old cottage there - so if I wasn't here right now, I think I would be at home painting walls and enjoying the coming of spring.
What personal connection do you have to the ocean (if any)?
I don't know if it is a personal connection, but it always amazes me that although the ocean covers nearly 70% of this planet of ours (making land the exception rather than the norm), most people in the world have no idea what this amazing part of our planet is like. I feel very lucky to have been able to spend so much time living and working in the oceans of the world.
I hope that our work out here can help give other people a feeling of what the majority of this planet is like and why is should be looked after.
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Comments
Hey Emily,
Long time since we have spoken. Still an Ocean Defender you are: goodie and right you do so. Perhaps I will join in again (if possible) and perhaps we can work again togther. Was a great time on the RW in Chile/Argentia 1996, remember?
Well my dear friend, keep up the good spirit!
Take care
René Papavoine
Posted by: René Papavoine at October 8, 2006 10:34 AM
hi, i want know you
how do you do
me
sunny
jakarta
Posted by: sunny murtaqi at October 19, 2006 11:09 AM
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