Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Hello, my name is Josh (or as I said to my new colleagues here in the Greenpeace NZ office - Josselin for the more reckless). Indeed, I am French.

Given that Greenpeace was moving to a new office, my first week here has been intense. I’m very pleased with being part of this great team, so merrily engaged in fighting ecological recklessness!

As part of my studies in Political Sciences and History, I’m doing an internship in Greenpeace NZ. Not only is it everyone’s duty to work in the cause of ecology, human rights and (sometimes) civil disobedience, but as a Frenchman, I’m carrying the heavy burden of past governmental blunders on my shoulders …
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Chris Robinson, Lloyd Anderson, David McTaggart, Tony Marriner and Brice Lalonde on Greenpeace vessel “Vega” before heading to Moruroa to stop a nuclear weapons test.

(Originally posted by Brian Fitzgerald from Greenpeace International)

Chris Robinson died of cancer a few hours ago at the age of 57.

Chris was a salty dog, a Greenpeace activist who spent his life on the sea, one of the original Rainbow Warrior crew and later captain of the Vega.

I find it hard to believe he’s gone. He was the guy who could sail through anything — from Pacific typhoons to Mediterranean storms in which the tiny Vega was doing 11 knots on bare poles. He ran inflatable boats under radioactive waste barrels being dumped in the sea. He challenged the French military again and again by sailing into their self-declared “exclusion zone” around the Pacific nuclear weapons test site at Moruroa. He went up against war machines and trident submarines. One activist who sailed with him said he was one of the few who you knew, if you put your life in his hands, he’d shepherd it safely through whatever it was you had to face, and hand it back to you.

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This is Francios Lesage at his leaving party (C) Cranston

Sad news, I am leaving New Zealand in two weeks from now… but, before I go, I felt like sharing my feelings about my time here and describing New Zealand and Greenpeace through French eyes. Then I asked myself: how do I do this? To highlight my true feelings, I reckon the best way is to give you special access to my personal diary. Needless to say, what you are about to read must remain between you and me.

23th June 2008, 10pm, in my youth hostel dormitory.

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow is my first day as an intern at Greenpeace NZ. Stressed? Well, I wasn’t until my mother asked me if I knew what to wear… Should I wear a shirt? What about my formal shoes? Anyway, another thought just hit me: what will these people think about France? I may be the first French intern since the one who spied to get information and bomb the Rainbow Warrior…

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In 1969, Marie Aimee took her two children for medical treatment, a six-day voyage across the Indian Ocean from their home on Diego Garcia island to Port Louis, Mauritius. Her husband, Dervillie Permal, stayed behind to work at a coconut oil factory and tend the family garden and animals.

After visiting the doctor and picking up supplies in Port Louis, Marie and her children arrived at the quay for the trip home. However, a British Government agent refused to allow them onto the boat, stranding Marie and her children in Mauritius. Throughout the following weeks, other marooned islanders appeared, congregating in a local slum, living in boxes or tin shacks. Two years later, Marie’s husband arrived in Port Louis with one small bag and a chilling story.
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Dan Marrow: If you’d like to join Dan or one of the other Greenpeace frontline teams working around NZ you can apply online

This is a blog by Dan Marrow originally posted on Stuff.co.nz

I am a Greenpeace Frontliner - you know, those friendly, cheerful people you see on the streets interacting, motivating and signing up new supporters for the greatest cause there is - our planet.

This is the only job I know that will give you an honest, unfiltered reflection of how the New Zealand public feel about the issues. Just try it, ask a complete stranger how they feel about climate change, deforestation, GE. Some people find it a provocation, some a chance to connect with likeminded folk, some embrace the opportunity to make a difference but most “don’t have the time”. A strange paradigm, considering we all live longer and work towards more leisure time.

Anyway a job like this doesn’t sit like any other job, it’s a lifestyle, so it only works if you put your heart and soul into it and it can be an emotional rollercoaster - no doubt. Read more »

Robert the volunteer (C) GREENPEACE / SHAROMOV

- A volunteer’s perspective

Today I lost my environmental activist cherry. Although I’ve been a Greenpeace supporter for a couple of years, this was the first time I’ve put my face out there for the organisation, and I wish I’d done it ages ago. Put aside all your preconceptions of hard-assed militants coupling with wind-burnt hippies. These people are down-to-earth, intelligent professionals with a bloody important message.

There were a couple of reasons why I offered to give up my Sunday for the Rainbow Warrior Target Climate Change Tour. Apart from the fact that I am passionate about the cause, it was a chance to spend some time on a ship that is an icon in its own right and a symbol for ecological movements all over the world. Even a grey day didn’t keep the Wellington public and tourists away. Read more »

Lyle Thurston

This week came the sad news of the passing of another warrior; Lyle Thurston - one of 12 crewmembers on the original Greenpeace campaign - has died of pneumonia at the age of 70 in Victoria, BC, Canada.

The Independent describes him as “a pharmacist and doctor, though that’s not to say he wasn’t… a hippie, a radical ecologist and a rebel who preferred ballet and opera in an era of rock. While living in a commune of doctors and lawyers in Deep Cove, north of Vancouver, in a house they called “the party mecca”, he became widely known as “the Doc” after he took to setting up a makeshift, free-of-charge medical tent at rock concerts to treat kids who had overdosed. It was the Sixties. He was kept busy.” Read more »

This morning the Rainbow Warrior sailed out of Auckland and I thought of Hans Monker who I met on the ship last time it was here.

You would never pick out Hans in a bar as a hero. He just didn’t have the look. But he went places most people wouldn’t dare go, to do work beyond most of us - for Greenpeace, Médecins Sans Frontières and other groups.

He was born in the Netherlands, travelled most of the world (from the Amazon to Antarctica) and died in Vietnam - where he lived with his wife.

Recently, Hans checked into the hospital with pneumonia. He responded well to treatment, and checked out several days later - eager to get back to work on a Greenpeace project. Today, he collapsed and passed away at a hotel breakfast table.

Read more on the Greenpeace International weblog