Sois formidables,...
Vuestra labor y vuestra fuerza nos ayudan a todos
Muchas gracias
Pablo

While I must congratulate you on all that you have acheived so far in Alang. I find two problems with your campaigning methods:
1. You have pissed off the governtment people so bad that they now refuse to co-operat with any group (such as ours) who are working for the improvement of environmental and labour conditions at Alang.
2. I think that you should interact more with the Gujarati public, Alang workers and the government to remove the misconceptions that they harbour about Greenpeace and its motives in Alang.

I think Greenpeace has done well in highlighting the issues of transboundary movement of 'toxic' wastes and the double standards of the UK government.

In effect, the response from the Govt. of India has also been positive, although GPCB should have put the onus of 'detoxifying' the ship with the shipowner. But then lets not forget that the UK government was always in a position to hold the shipowner accountable for 'cleaning' the ship. It failed to act. However, we hope, in the future they would respond positively for reducing the risks of our workers being exposed to toxic material.

Even as these events have build up over the past few weeks, a reality that we now face at ground zero – Alang - is that the shiprecyclers (shipbreakers) are now very much opposed to using their platform to voice concerns regarding ‘toxic’ ships and 'communicating to ship owners for clean ships'. Alang is not the forum to voice such concerns – that’s the message that has strongly come through. Further, the inadequate rapport and lack of a participatory interaction with the local people, the shiprecylers and local institutions has created a void that has made each stakeholder of the shiprecyling industry ‘suspicious’ of each others motives. There definitely is a sense of insecurity. Probably there needs to be more transparency, easy accessibility and clarity of information being communicated to the government machinery, the local environmental groups, the workers and the ship recyclers at Alang.

In terms of achievement, the legislations and the regulatory mechanisms on clean ship recycling procedures have definitely been strengthened and so has the issue been extensively covered in the media. But these may perhaps not be the ‘true’ indicators. As of now, even towards the end of the campaigning and the inspection, no ‘collective stand or voice’ has emerged. The ‘collective voice’ is that of shiprecylers, workers, environmental groups, government machinery and the greenpeace activists pressing for accountability from the shipowners and the countries from where these ‘toxic’ ships originate. Let’s hope that in future, similar campaigns against ‘toxic’ ships start at the shores of the countries from where these ‘toxic’ ships come. That way the ‘shipowners’ would feel the ‘pinch’ of the campaign rather than the ‘shiprecylcers’. That then would be the greatest achievement.

woo! greenpeace!

Por un Mundo Mejor para Todos. Gracias.

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