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Daily blogs from the frontlines of the Greenpeace planet down under. 

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  • Paper cuts: the bloody tale of deforestation

    Blogpost by Chen Shu Xuan - July 23, 2013 at 7:54

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    On the edges of the large white canvasses you can see clearly the bloodstains. As if someone has cut their finger on them. Only a closer look reveals these bloodstains as wounded animals. The “Paper Cut Life” art exhibition is designed to spread an important message: paper production leads to deforestation, and thus destroys the habitats of many different species of animals.

    Greenpeace has a firm commitment to protecting the remaining native forest as well the natural habitats of all the different species on this planet. Paper is the prime culprit of deforestation and thus is an important aspect of forest protection work.

    In 2004, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) was linked to deforestation in Yunnan. Since then Greenpeace has been engaged in a long struggle against APP in China. Over the last...

  • A whale of a time

    Blogpost by John Frizell - July 19, 2013 at 9:19

    Last week was a good week for the fin whales of the North Atlantic, a week that has been three years in the making.

    In April 2010, we learned that a ship from Iceland had unloaded 7 containers of whale meat in Rotterdam for transport to Japan on a larger vessel. The Icelandic hunt for fin whales is entirely for export to Japan, not for consumption in Iceland.  So our Dutch office occupied the mooring lines of the big ship and stayed there until the shipping company offloaded the containers and sailed without them. If we could stop the export then the hunt would have to stop. But Rotterdam is a big port. The containers were soon in a huge warehouse, hidden amid thousands of others. The whalers made better efforts to conceal their products and we were unable to find the containers o... Read more >

  • Whales in the courtroom – the last days of the hearing

    Blogpost by John Frizell - July 19, 2013 at 9:14

    I was optimistic on board the train, heading to The Hague for Japan's final presentation of its case for continuing Antarctic whaling. The court case started more than 3 weeks ago at the International Court of Justice and my lawyer colleagues and I have been coming here regularly to observe what is happening.

    Rather astonishingly the last days I had to watch it on a computer in my hotel room after all members of the public were barred from the hearings without explanation.

    Japan claims that Article 8 of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling allows it to do what it wants, regardless of the rest of the Convention but Australia has made a powerful case that Japan cannot justify any and all whaling that it wants to do just by calling that whaling 'scientifi... Read more >

  • It's Simple, Simon.

    Blogpost by Nathan Argent - July 17, 2013 at 11:23

    Simon Bridges pants on Fire Billboard

    Minister of Energy Simon Bridges was just the other day branded the “Justin Bieber of the cabinet”. One can only guess that’s either because of his crooning at the Parliamentary karaoke nights, or that he wants to see his “name up in lights in the big city”.

    It seems it was the latter and Simon, your dream has come true.

    Yesterday we plastered ‘Simon Bridges Pants on Fire’ on a central Wellington billboard, measuring almost 300 square metres and seen by tens of thousands of people every day. It is a direct challenge to him to clear his name by releasing full details of a meeting he had with Shell oil executives. Simon has so far denied, in Parliament, having contact with oil companies about a controversial Crown Minerals Bill amendment, concerning protests at sea.

    So far he has failed... Read more >

  • Russia says NYET at Ross Sea talks

    Blogpost by John Hocevar - July 17, 2013 at 10:48

    As I pack up my bags to head home to the US after two weeks in Germany, I have to stop and wonder at how hard it is to get the world working together for a real environmental outcome.

    I arrived here with about a dozen environmental activists from around the world to push for two marine protected areas (MPAs) in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean. The proposals, for 3.8 million square kilometres, were for the Ross Sea – often called the ‘last ocean’ because it is one of the last untouched marine eco-systems left – and the coastal regions of East Antarctica. Without a doubt, the establishment of these two MPAs would be a good thing for our global oceans – already under stress from overfishing, climate change and pollution.

    Today, we head home empty handed.

    The meeting of the Commission for the Conse... Read more >

  • Chipping away at the fin whale trade

    Blogpost by Arin de Hoog - July 16, 2013 at 11:31

    Somewhere between Iceland and Japan, the fin whale got a little bit safer. The 27 metre long mammal is the second largest in the world. It ranges across the globe and can be found less and less in all the major oceans. It's a beautiful creature, sleek and grey. It produces a single calf once every two or three years. It's not so sleek and beautiful, however, when it’s eviscerated and bloody on the docks of an Icelandic port.

    This year, one man in Iceland, along with his company, Hvalur, felt it made sense to resume slaughtering the whales. Odd, because his countrymen don't have much use for whale meat. Iceland, as a whole, opposes whaling. Not even the perennial whale-hunting country of Japan has much use for whale meat anymore. The fact that the whales – up to 185 likely to be killed ... Read more >

  • Best opportunity for the creation of world’s largest marine reserves

    Blogpost by Richard Page - July 12, 2013 at 8:56

    Once again I am attending a meeting of the strangely named CCAMLR (the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources), the organisation responsible for looking after the icy waters that surround Antarctica.

    But this meeting in Bremerhaven, Germany, is different - it is a 'special' meeting. Its focus is particularly close to this campaigner's heart, as it is solely concerned with two proposals to protect huge areas of the Ross Sea and East Antarctica.

    These areas are some of the most pristine to be found anywhere in the world. Approximately 10,000 species live in the Southern Ocean, many of which cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. As yet relatively unaffected by human activities, the Ross Sea and East Antarctica are home to huge numbers of top p... Read more >

  • Whale meat shipment successfully blocked

    Blogpost by Andrew, Greenpeace International - July 11, 2013 at 8:23

    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.

    zoom
    10 July 2013

    © Daniel Mueller / Greenpeace

      Read more >

    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...

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