Also by jamie

Proposed forest law threatens Amazon rainforest

Posted by jamie - 5 July 2010 at 12:17pm - Comments

In Brazil, moves are afoot to amend a piece of legislation which has been protecting the Amazon rainforest for over 70 years, and not for the better. If the changes are voted through, it could mean that the area of the Amazon which can be legally destroyed will double, and it's the backers of these changes - the agriculture, biofuels and energy barons - who stand to benefit as they argue that pesky forest laws are a hindrance to economic development. 

Biodiversity Inc: providing natural services to all our shareholders

Posted by jamie - 28 June 2010 at 3:42pm - Comments

Bio Diversity Incorporated from carleton creek on Vimeo.

Carlton Creek, who submitted a video to our HSBC advert challenge, has also produced this great little film which takes the ongoing discussions about attaching monetary worth to the natural services provided by our planet and turning them on their head. It's a neat little thought experiment into what the sales pitch for a company representing all life on Earth (or 'shareholders') would be like.

Elsewhere, artist and architect Maya Lin (previous work: Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC) is working on a collaborative, multi-media and multi-space project called What Is Missing? The current website highlights species which have been lost or are severely threatened, and if nothing else hovering your mouse over the map markers and hearing a soundscape of endangered creatures is haunting.

Failed whales: status quo remains at IWC

Posted by jamie - 24 June 2010 at 11:45am - Comments

Karli Thomas, Greenpeace oceans campaigner, writes from the IWC meeting in Morocco.

The town of Sidi R'bat on Morocco's Atlantic coast is where the biblical Jonah is said to have been vomited up by a whale. Less than 100km from that spot, something has been going on this week that is again enough to make a whale sick to the stomach.

The International Whaling Commission has been meeting this year beneath a dark cloud of scandal. As delegates descended on the city of Agadir, media headlines exposed Japan 'buying' countries to vote with them - including the accusation that airfares and accommodation for this meeting's acting chairman were paid by Japan. Hardly an auspicious start to a crucial international meeting, nor a good omen for the whales.

As the hermit crabs go, so goes the Gulf

Posted by jamie - 15 June 2010 at 2:12pm - Comments

Unlike these pelicans, hermit crabs are less obvious victims of the Deepwater disaster (proper crab imagery below the fold, honest) © Magan/Greenpeace

John Hocevar, team leader of the oceans campaign at Greenpeace USA, is currently in Louisiana helping with Greenpeace's response to the BP oil spill. Here's his latest report from the centre of the ever-growing disaster.

Greetings from Grand Isle, Louisiana, one of the growing number of places unlucky enough to win a "heavily oiled" classification on the government maps tracking the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite BP's efforts to keep it under wraps, we're here to document the impacts of the spill. The public has a right - and a responsibility - to know the true cost of our continued reliance on offshore oil, and fossil fuels in general.

Taking action to free bluefin tuna

Posted by jamie - 14 June 2010 at 4:08pm - Comments

The crews of the Arctic Sunrise and the Rainbow Warrior have once more come to the aid of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean. Although the fishing season has ended early because the quotas have been reached, there are still large cages out there filled with fish caught over the past couple of weeks. These cages are bound for tuna 'ranches', where the fish will be kept and fattened up, before being slaughtered.

Yesterday afternoon our activists again tried to free the endangered tuna from one of these cages.

Activist murder shows perilous side of campaigning in DRC

Posted by jamie - 9 June 2010 at 4:29pm - Comments

It's easy to forget that, even though we moan about discredited political systems and infringement of civil liberties, in the UK we don't actually have it that bad. It's rare that anyone in the UK would feel in danger for speaking out against the government but of course that's not the case in other parts of the world. A shocking reminder of this came with the news last week that a prominent human rights activist was murdered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Floribert Chebeya Bahizire was the executive director of La Voix des Sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless), an organisation he set up in 1983 to expose human rights abuses and injustice in the DRC. But last Wednesday in Kinshasa he was found dead in his car, and his driver is still missing. According to the news wires, there'll be an investigation into Bahizire's death but there are questions over how revealing it will be. So much so that an open letter has been sent to the president Joseph Kabila from over 50 human rights groups, advocating an open, impartial inquiry.

Of course, Greenpeace has a team in Kinshasa and the challenges of campaigning there are markedly different than from a comfortable office in London. Intimidation and murder against those working to improve the lives of those who are disenfranchised and disregarded is unacceptable wherever it happens, and with the 50th anniversary of independence for the DRC approaching at the end of the month, Bahizire's murder will cast a long shadow over the celebrations.

Science in the arctic: deploying mescosms at 79°N

Posted by jamie - 9 June 2010 at 1:44pm - Comments

Like many other marine species, pteropods are threatened by ocean acidification © Cobbing/Greenpeace

Janet Cotter, from Greenpeace's Science Unit is currently on board the Esperanza on the first leg of the Arctic Under Pressure expedition. The ship is currently in Ny-Ålesund in the arctic, where Janet has been helping seagulls from 'contributing' to ocean acidification research.

In my day job, I work as a scientist as Greenpeace's Research Laboratories in Exeter, which is part of the Greenpeace's Science Unit. We might not get do the banner hanging from bridges and all the dramatic stuff that other Greenpeace activists do, but we have an important role in the organisation.  We analyse samples from around the world in our laboratories, often looking for toxic contamination of soils, rivers and seas, or sampling foodstuffs for GM contamination.

On World Oceans Day, the Tokyo Two urgently need your help

Posted by jamie - 8 June 2010 at 12:30pm - Comments

The Tokyo Two trial has just come to end in Japan today with the prosecutor asking the judge to sentence defendants Junichi and Toru to 18 months in jail. This would be the longest jail term for any Greenpeace activist in the organisation's 40 year history.

As you may know, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki - better known as the Tokyo Two - are on trial for intercepting a box of whale meat as part of an investigation into an embezzlement ring within Japan's taxpayer-funded 'research' whaling programme.

The Japanese government subsidises the loss-making whaling programme to the tune of US$5 million a year, making the embezzlement of whale meat exposed by Junichi and Toru a significant crime. But instead of the criminals behind the embezzlement facing justice, it's the Toyko Two who find themselves in the dock.

Another attempt to free bluefin tuna from fishing nets

Posted by jamie - 7 June 2010 at 5:24pm - Comments

Earlier today, the Greenpeace team in the Mediterranean made another attempt to free bluefin tuna caught by the purse-seine fishing vessels. The good news is nobody got hurt this time, but the bad news is that - despite a brilliant effort - they weren't able to release any tuna.

As you can see in the slideshow above, the Arctic Sunrise got close to a Tunisian tugboat towing a net cage, into which caught tuna are transferred and towed to a tuna 'ranch' where they're fattened up ready for slaughter. Lowering a cutting grapple from the deck of the Sunrise, activists tried to cut through the netting; meanwhile, the towing rope between the tug and the cage was cut by the crew of an inflatable.

Unfortunately, the fishing crews reacted quickly, launching their own inflatable and managing to put guards on the cage. So no bluefin tuna freed this time but the fishing season still has a week to go...

Video: what happens when grappling hook meets leg

Posted by jamie - 7 June 2010 at 1:48pm - Comments

For a taste of the violence Greenpeace activists encountered on Friday as they tried to free bluefin tuna from purse-seine fishing nets, look no further than the video below. But be warned: there are some close-up images of a serious injury which are liable to make you lose your lunch.

We just had a discussion about whether to promote this video. Other Greenpeace offices have chosen to use it (including our Turkish colleagues, hence the Turkish title) although it's quite close to the knuckle (or shin bone, to be more precise). Yet it shows not only the determination of everyone on board our two ships to put the brakes on the extinction of bluefin tuna, but also the violence and intimidation they've been confronted with. So here it is.

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