Fifty-nine year old Colin Russell was born and bred in Melbourne.

Colin has always had a deep love of the sea and developed superior sailing skills while crewing on yacht races to Hobart. On these trips, Colin became very fond of Tassie and moved there in 1990 with his wife and baby daughter.

In 1994, Colin graduated with an Associate Diploma in Marine Electronics which gave him qualifications as a radio operator among other things.

Due to lack of marine jobs, Colin and his wife moved to Karratha in WA where Colin worked for two years as a marine radio operator for the Australian Water Association.

After returning to Tassie in 1999, Colin started working as a radio operator on Greenpeace ships. His first expedition on the Arctic Sunrise ship was to Antarctica for the anti-whaling campaign.

Colin’s wife and daughter are very supportive of his work to highlight environment crime and to protect pristine wild places like the Artic.

When he’s not on Greenpeace ships, Colin and his wife spend their time slowly renovating an old farm house.

Websites and Media

Australian Greenpeace activist expresses confusion in letter to wife
The Guardian, 7 November 2013

Wife of jailed Greenpeace activist speaks out
ABC Australia, 24 October 2013