I grew up in West Papua, which sits in the far west of the world’s biggest archipelago. I studied forestry in the province’s capital, but grew up in another city called Jayapura. If West Papua is considered frontier land, then Jayapura...

On May 26, oil began flowing down the Kolva River through Komi Indigenous land in Northern Russia. For a week now the oil has been coating the river and building up on the banks, with no reaction from Rusvietpetro, the joint venture...

It’s been a bad few weeks for the oceans of Southeast Asia, with three separate petrochemical spills polluting our waters, endangering biodiversity and livelihoods. Coming hot on the heels of the spill in Thailand on July 27,...

In a recent news   item   on the   BBC , Artur Akopov, chief of operations on the Prirazlomnaya, made a number of absurd claims about the safety of the peaceful Greenpeace action on the side of Gazprom’s giant oil platform. In a   ...

All of us produce waste each day, and what you or I consider waste might not be worthless to someone else. But have you ever wondered where our personal, household, and office wastes are being disposed?  Have you ever asked where your...

Last week, I received a letter from a long-time friend who is currently teaching at Cebu International School (CIS). She shared with me a story about how her five kindergarten students responded to the news article they read in class...

I always admire people at the frontline, actively confronting the threats happening in their backyard. Most of these people, the nameless thousands brave men and women, can choose to ignore dynamite fishing that their neighbors are...

Anna Dawson is no stranger to Philippine coastlines, having lived and worked in the country since 2008. However, her next challenge will be one of the biggest yet. From September to December 2016, the New Zealander is cycling 2,000km...

Plastic pollution might be very visible in the Philippines and other Asian countries, but the crisis started somewhere else. It began in the boardrooms of the top multinational companies when they decided to dump products packaged in...

It is the season to be jolly, to be holy, to love and to give. And it is in the last act, the act of giving, where we struggle at Christmas time. Malls bulge with the influx of shoppers buying gifts to show their loved ones just how...

I’m here in Bangkok at a gathering of hundreds of tuna business officials , policy-makers and even a few environmental advocates like myself. It’s been a long week of discussion about the future of the industry, including a lot...

Yesterday in Guam we spent much of the morning discussing the WCPFC’s Technical and Compliance Committee’s Provisional Monitoring Report from their 7 th regular session on Surveillance and zzzzzz…….  If you didn’t fall asleep...

With more than 7,000 islands the Philippines has a coastline longer than the United States. We are surrounded by water, in fact more than 2 million square kilometers. A majority the Philippine population eat fish, with 80% of animal...

Ocean stewardship in the Pacific has come a long way. Ask a Pacific islander fifty years ago about managing fish and you would have been greeted with a look of bemusement. After all, fish back in the day were thought of as unlimited.

Have you ever stopped doing what you do for a moment and think about where you get all the things you need to live?  Our Oceans.  Every second breath we take comes from it.  A lot of what we eat live in it.  Jobs of many of our...

Late last year, while I was onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, we discovered a Taiwanese ship, the Sheng Chi Hui Number 7,  catching and finning sharks  in Palauan waters. This is a sad, destructive and unfortunately widespread...

My job as a Greenpeace oceans campaigner has sent me to lots of places in the past ten years- on land and at sea. Last month, I was in Manila, Philippines to meet with the president of Frabelle fishing corporation, one of the...

Pirates, in my imagination, are valiant seafarers in search of richness and glory in the high seas. In the olden days, they are regarded with fear and loathing for tales run wild of ghastly misdemeanors.  They rob, hijack and loot...

“Arya!” shouted the captain.  This word reverberated around Purple Lilac 888 as it readied itself to release its net. “Arya” , which literally means “forge ahead”, is a Philippine term used in fishing jargon to refer to the...

Crew members of the 'Jing Lu Yuan No005' are seen hurriedly stuffing dried shark fins into bags and rushing below deck to remove them from view. ©Greenpeace / Alex Hofford  Currently I’m on assignment for Greenpeace as the...

It was 2006 when I first volunteered in Greenpeace. I just finished my last term in college and a friend invited me to attend a volunteer’s meeting. At that time, I only associated Greenpeace with their anti-GMO (genetically modified...

As a Pacific Islander onboard the Greenpeace vessel, the  MY Esperanza (Spanish for Hope), I cannot help but feel that there  is hope despite the plight facing our magnificent Pacific Ocean. This vast oceanscape has been the bridge...

In the words of David Attenborough, “ Our planet is a blue planet ”. With over 70% of our world covered by water, our oceans can be seen from across the solar system. It wasn’t long ago that the oceans were still believed to be...