© Greenpeace/Irene Berg
Neil - radio operator
Australia
My name is Neil.
I'm from Victoria, Australia mate.
I'm a class A pain in the #$%^ Radio Operator
How/why did you get involved with Greenpeace?
It’s a long, long time ago now! As a volunteer in the Brisbane office (yes there used to be one) I was still in the army then, used to turn up in uniform and get changed in the office.
When I was really young I wanted to work as a park ranger, but back then you needed a PhD in track maintenance to get a job. I was also into electronics thus I drifted into it. When I became a volunteer I found they needed radio people for the ships. I was trained as a radio technician a good match and I have been at it since.
Why is this expedition important to you?
This is a part of my home, I grew up on the edge of the Southern Ocean and I still live near it most of the time. I can remember watching whales from the beach as a child, loved them then and still do now. The environment has always been a part of my life, we do so many stupid things as a species, when the obvious hits us in the face we still don't get it.
There ain't many places left untouched and things that are not manipulated for our own use. We have decimated the whale populations and we think we have the technology to count and manage something we are never going to understand. We don't even have simple farming under control. Yet we think we can chase the remnants of a biomass across the globe just to keep alive a barbaric practice which should have been phased out well before even the IWC got off its lazy but.
When at sea, what do you miss the most from home?
Denise
