This morning, Greenpeace Germany activists boarded a ship docked in Hamburg, and prevented it from leaving with a cargo of meat from endangered fin whales.

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10 July 2013

© Daniel Mueller / Greenpeace

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Germany doesn't hunt whales of course. Like almost every country in the world, the German government agrees that commercial whaling should be banned. Iceland allows whale hunting, but fin whale meat isn't popular there either. So the fin whales killed in the Iceland hunt are for export to Japan, which has a small, dwindling market for the meat.

By the time it reached Hamburg, the meat from roughly 10 fin whales whale was packed into six (presumably refrigerated) cargo containers. Last Friday, activists, with boats and banners, met the shipment in port upon its arrival. They es...

This morning I was at the High Court in central London where a historic ruling was handed down on who controls the UK's right to fish.

An attempt by big fishing firms to protect their decades-long stranglehold on Britain’s fish was resoundingly defeated in court. The judgement gives back control of our seas to the public and the UK government, rather than big industry.

This now clears the way for fisheries minister Richard Benyon to carry out a major shake-up of the quota available to our low-impact, sustainable fishermen.

The case centred on whether the government had the authority to take unused fishing quota from big boats and give it to small boats that would use it. The big vessels claimed the government simply couldn’t do this, because despite originally being given their quota for fre... Read more >

Today, the Herald trotted out a piece based on some polling they’ve done, about the recent crackdown on protesting at sea. We’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the responses people were offered, and the actual question. But it’s fair to say that the responses were hugely different to independent polling we commissioned.

This new law was introduced on Easter Sunday. A good day, some might say, to announce something which you thought might draw some criticism, or be unpopular. This new law was also introduced without parliamentary scrutiny, and had to be rammed through Parliament without public consultation. It doesn’t really look like Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges thought it would be well received. That’s probably because it breaches international law, human righ... Read more >

The back-and-forth on Maui’s dolphins between Government departments, released under the Official Information Act and reported by the Dominion Post over the weekend, is gravely concerning for two reasons.

Firstly, the Ministry of Primary Industries is overstepping its mandate and determining New Zealand’s vote on (or to be precise, against) protection for New Zealand’s unique and critically endangered Maui’s dolphin. The latest population estimate showed only 55 breeding adult Maui’s remain, making this the rarest dolphin in the world. This is undoubtedly an issue that should be led by the Department of Conservation, which in the past decade has carefully rebuilt the kakapo population from a similarly low level.

Secondly, the Ministry of Primary Industry’s insistence on a “no” vote by N... Read more >

Picture standing next to a 747 jumbo jet as it is taking-off, experiencing deafening roars that you can’t block out. Now imagine that you rely on your sense of hearing to locate family and friends, find food and navigate through the environment. Suddenly, that deafening roar is more than just headache-inducing: it fundamentally threatens your way of life and survival.

Seismic surveys – which are used to locate sub-surface oil reservoirs - produce sounds that are much, much louder than a 747 and that can be heard across vast distances. In New Zealand, seismic surveying activities are widespread and set to become even more common as more of our waters are opened up for petroleum exploration. This will expose whales and dolphins to threats that we are only just beginning to understand.

The... Read more >

People have always looked to Apple to know what the next big, new (and profitable) idea would be in the world of technology.

Today’s no different, as Apple is again leading the way to the future – now in solar power.

Apple laid out the details today of a significant new investment to power its data center in Nevada – one of several that store your iTunes, movies, photos and e-mails – with solar power.

Apple’s investment in solar energy shows that the company is making good on the promise it made last year to power its iCloud with 100 % renewable energy. The detailed disclosure that Apple gave today should give confidence to Apple’s millions of users that the company is powering its corner of the Internet with clean energy.

Apple’s new solar array shows some of the com...

The courtroom at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the Netherlands is a long way from the Antarctic. It is a beautiful room with enormous stained glass windows, twelve feet up from the floor, but this is where the future of the Antarctic whales will be decided in front of a long row of 16 judges in black robes and white scarves.

After repeated requests from the world community, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) agreed to a moratorium on commercial whaling that came into effect in 1986.

Despite this international whaling moratorium Japan continues to catch these amazing marine mammals in the Antarctic in the name of scientific research but all necessary research on these whales can be done by non-lethal means.

The meat from the hunts is largely going into stora... Read more >

Resolute Forest Products, one of the most destructive logging companies in Canada, is suing my colleagues for $7 million. It thinks this will make them shut up about its destruction of Canada's Boreal Forest. It won't work - and I should know.

Canada's Boreal Forest, home to herds of endangered caribou, is under threat from Resolute, Canada's largest logging company. Greenpeace campaigners have been trying to get Resolute to put down its chainsaws while a conservation plan can be drawn up that protects this valuable and vulnerable forest.

Instead of talking to us, it launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against our Canadian office, naming several campaigners personally.

Lawsuits like this are designed to silence campaigners who criticise companies. There's even a na... Read more >