The SV Rainbow Warrior comes to the east coast of India in November.
I have been working with Greenpeace now for over 11 years,
having started as a volunteer in the UK office. There was always
more than enough to do and pretty soon I was filling in where
needed, doing contract work. In time I became the information
officer and then the UK oceans campaigner before moving to
Greenpeace International a few years ago.
I have always been interested in the oceans, as a youngster I
was very fascinated by Jacques Cousteau's pioneering documentaries
about marine life. More recently many people around the globe have
been similarly amazed by the BBC Blue Planet series. However I soon
picked up that all was not well with the oceans, that human
activities were causing major problems. Like many others I was
particularly disturbed at how the great whales were being decimated
by commercial whaling.
When as a teenager in the 1970s, I saw film of the early
Greenpeace activists taking non-violent direct action, by putting
themselves between a whale and a catcher boat then I knew I wanted
to be part of that. The campaign to stop whaling in some ways
epitomises what Greenpeace does best - by showing the public what
is really happening out at sea and confronting the destructive
activities Greenpeace is able to challenge governments to introduce
and enforce laws that protect the ocean environment. Through an
international campaign spearheaded by Greenpeace, but involving
lots of other organisations, some great victories were won,
including the moratorium on commercial whaling and the
establishment of the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.
I myself have been very much involved in the whaling issue for
many years and have taken part in direct actions against Norwegian
whalers as well as done much political lobbying around the
International Whaling Commission.
In fact, the last time I was on the Rainbow Warrior was just
over a year ago. Then we were in a very different part of the
world, Iceland, making the argument to the Icelandic people that
whales are worth far more alive than dead and to restart commercial
whaling would jeopardise their growing whale watching and
eco-tourism industry. This recent whale work in Iceland shows
another face of our work, which is about communication and
dialogue.
Greenpeace's oceans work expanded over the years from the
whaling campaign to tackle other issues such as oceans dumping and
over-fishing.
In the 1980s a highly successful campaign to ban of the use of
the huge high seas driftnets was mounted with work carried out in
many countries to pressure the United Nations to agree the ban. It
is our ability to work globally in a co-ordinated fashion that
gives Greenpeace much of its ability to make positive changes for
the environment. Showing what was really happening at sea was again
crucial in securing the driftnet ban and I am very pleased to be
meeting on this tour the photographer and diver, Roger Grace, who
captured many memorable images that helped win the campaign.
Deep-seas campaign
Currently we are running an international campaign to save the
deep seas and more specifically, secure a moratorium on high seas
bottom trawling at the UN.
Deep sea bottom trawling is a truly destructive fishing
technique that is laying waste to unique habitats and species
throughout the deep seas. Greenpeace is calling for a halt to what
is a fairly new industry so that these deep sea ecosystems can be
assessed and proper internationally binding rules can be put in
place to ensure their protection in the future. It is fundamentally
a campaign concerned with protecting the global commons.
Much of this fishing occurs around seamounts - underwater sea
mountains that rise more than a 1000 metres from the seafloor. Many
curious creatures such as orange roughy, (a fish that can live to
be over 120 years old), and slow growing cold-water corals are to
be found around these seamounts. They are home to the giant squid,
a species which can grow as long as 12 metres and yet has never
been seen in the wild. Less than one percent of the world's
seamounts have been properly explored and documented. This
highlights just how little we know about these deep-sea
ecosystems.
At the moment Greenpeace's newest ship the Esperanza is out in
the Western Atlantic bearing witness to this most destructive form
of fishing, showing the horrifying levels of bycatch, that is
non-target species of marine organism, taken by this form of
fishing. Earlier this year the Rainbow Warrior was doing similar
work documenting New Zealand deep-sea trawlers in the Tasman
Sea.
Pacific fisheries
Another project the Rainbow Warrior has been busy with this year
is the Pacific Fisheries campaign. The Greenpeace Australia/Pacific
office organised a tour of several Pacific islands to discuss
fisheries issues with the people there and in particular the
problem of distant water fishing for tuna in the Pacific and the
problems of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, known as
IUU fishing. We prefer the term 'pirate fishing'. The emphasis this
year has been on listening to what Pacific islanders have to say
about these problems and how to solve them as well as engaging in
the relevant political processes.
Marine Reserves
Now to talk about the part of the campaign which I am currently
most involved with. We know the world's oceans are in a terrible
state. Over-fishing is perhaps the single greatest problem - but
there are a wide range of human activities including pollution,
disposal activities and oil and mineral extraction which threaten
marine habitats and species. However we have a unique tool in the
form of marine reserves which can help us address many of these
threats. By marine reserves, I mean areas which are put off limits
to extractive use - including fishing. Such marine reserves are the
equivalent of national parks on land. They work both as a
conservation tool and a fisheries management tool, but how, you may
ask, can banning fishermen from an area help them catch more
fish?
The answer is that by protecting exploited populations and
allowing reproductive females to grow larger within a marine
reserve, they produce more eggs and these will help restock
adjacent fishing grounds. Generally when a female fish doubles in
length she increases her egg output by a factor of eight and these
eggs tend to survive better. Also as the protected fish population
grows some individuals will spill over out of the reserve where
they can be caught by fishermen. Many of these fish will be larger
than those living outside the marine reserve.
Our marine reserves campaign began in the North and Baltic Seas
with the launch of a report that explained our rationale for
creating large-scale marine reserves and also a bold demand for 40%
of these seas to be made into marine reserves. This figure is
supported by the science, which shows that benefits accrue with
size.
Following the launch of the report we have been actively
campaigning. We have conducted ship expeditions in both the North
and Baltic seas, carried our public communication work and much
political lobbying work with governments, officials, scientists and
relevant representatives from industry. We are beginning to get the
issue on the political agenda but it is going to take years to
achieve our goal as there is not yet an appropriate mechanism
available at the European level which could be used to establish
marine reserves of the kind that we are proposing. It will
undoubtedly like all environmental campaigns be a hard slog.
Despite all the science supporting the creation of marine
reserves it has been estimated that less than ½% of the world's
oceans are designated as marine protected areas and less than
1/10,000th as off limits to all kinds of fishing.
I was therefore pleased to learn before this visit that the
Government of India has made some steps to protecting its own
waters with the establishment of the Gulf of Mannar biosphere
reserve. However as I have been hearing the Gulf of Mannar and the
seas around India face many threats and the problems are similar to
those found in other parts of the world. This tour with the Rainbow
Warrior gives us a chance to highlight those threats and for
Greenpeace to talk with and learn from all those people concerned
with health of India's seas, so that in the long term Greenpeace
can help ensure that they are given the protection they deserve. If
we don't work together to sustain the seas, how can we expect the
seas to sustain us?