Today we had the opportunity to get down and dirty. On our way back from the ice edge we sailed through the Forland Sundet to a beach called Poolepynten on the Island of Prins Karls Forland to pick up rubbish.  

Armed with rubber gloves and rubbish bags, a dozen of us strolled down the beach. We recognized in the snow some paw prints from an Arctic fox. About a kilometre away three reindeer were lying down to shelter themselves from the wind.

But how on Earth could such a remote place, hardly inhabited, have rubbish on its beaches you might ask? Well, both the Gulf Stream and the currents from Siberia happen to pass by, and bring in fishing nets, ropes, floats, and even the odd spray cans, bottles and plastic containers. The weirdest things we found were two different shoes and a comput... Read more >

The Arctic Sunrise has sailed us all the way to the edge of the sea ice. We found it far west at 78 to 79 degrees latitude North, almost 16 hours sailing further away than normal. We are in a record melting year indeed.

We anchored on an ice sheet for a couple of days to get a good feeling what the melting Arctic is like, to take a few pictures and of course to see if we could spot a polar bear.

I took it upon myself to climb up the Crow’s Nest 25 metres above the ship, and take in the 360 degree view. As far as I could see it was just one giant cracked ice sheet.

We are right in the middle of nowhere. The view and the silence are breath-taking. It just makes you feel alive. This white palace is classic polar bear territory, and sure enough we got to spot a mum and her cub strolling al... Read more >

‘Clicktivism’ has come of age as the digital driver of the #PowerOfWe. Malcolm Gladwell’s infamous dismissal of online activism as ineffective signature gathering missed the point in 2010, when he coined the phrase; sharing information, crowd sourcing concerns and solutions are driving change and are amongst the hallmarks of campaigning 2.0.

More than two billion people have access to the Internet, apparently eight new people are getting connected every second. Roughly a billion people are on Facebook, where they like, share, debate, inform and alter decisions that are being taken about our common future.

We, at Greenpeace, no longer simply count our supporters as those who donate money. Our thinking has evolved and embraced the ‘power of we’. There are millions making up the ‘... Read more >

Usually I work in New Zealand on the climate campaign but right now I'm in Hyderabad, India, helping out the team here on a big push around the Convention on Biological Diversity.

It's hard to throw a party and expect your guests to behave better than you do. Yet that is exactly what the Indian government is doing as it hosts a major international conference on biodiversity in Hyderabad. There's a word for that – I think its hypocrisy.

The Convention on Biological Diversity opened on Monday 8th October for two weeks, and is an international get together of thousands of government representatives, media and non-government organisations to discuss the state of the world's biodiversity and how to protect it.

Yet despite being the host, the Indian government is charging ahead with a... Read more >

The Citarum River in West Java, Indonesia, supports agriculture, water supplies, fisheries, industry, sewerage and electricity. It’s the lifeblood of the community around it. 

But like so many other waterways in Southeast Asia, the Citarum is sick. Toxic pollution from manufacturing and industry is strangling the river.

This month, across Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, Greenpeace activitsts worked with communities to highlight the powerful role they play in the future of their water – and put a stop to toxic water pollution. These communities have a right to know what is in their water, what is being pumped into it and a right to not have it contaminated by hazardous chemicals.

Through water patrols, actions on local polluters and even zombie parades in The Phillipi... Read more >

The best way to get around in the Arctic waters of Spitzbergen, an island in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, is on an icebreaker. So it’s good that the Arctic Sunrise is one of those -you don't want to get stuck around here.

This morning, after I’d had breakfast and cleaned the toilets (one of the chores I do every morning on the ship), a good dozen of us went for a trip to a glacier on the island of Blomstrand. The island was long believed to be a peninsula, but after the dramatic melting of the glaciers in the region, it became apparent what it really was.  Armed with a picture of the glaciers taken in 1928, Greenpeace went and photographed it in 2001 to mark the difference.

Today we are going back and the trend has unfortunately not changed.

Blomstrand's glaciers, like many others, are... Read more >

In preparation for the Arctic tour of Svalbard on the Arctic Sunrise, it will surely be fascinating to visit the global seed vault, the research bases, and walk around glaciers.

But the ultimate goal has to be to spot a walrus, or even better, a polar bear in its natural habitat. I know from previous encounters with sea lions back in New Zealand that it would probably be best to stay far away from a walrus. Imagine how far away you need to stay from a polar bear!

The Greenpeace crew is so well prepared for a possible run in, that they dedicated a whole chapter of a manual to ‘Safety protocol for Greenpeace operations in areas with polar bears.’ We are also all to engage in polar bear safety training.

We are told that this training is “as important as a fire-or a man overboard drill; it m... Read more >