Sitting behind a desk in London, it's sometimes easy to forget we're part of an organisation working in places all over the planet. The mundanity of everyday life acts a kind of blinker and even with email, the exotic locations some people work in still seem very far away. It's all relative of course, but then something happens to peel back those blinkers and put what we do in context.
A toxic spill has been plaguing the Ivory Coast since earlier this month. People in the capital, Abidjan, have been dying as a result of lethal waste shipped there by a European company for treatment. Latest reports say that seven have died and (wait for it) over 77,700 have sought medical attention. The uproar has led to the dismissal of the Ivorian government and if you ever need an example of the North dumping its rubbish on the South, this is it.
But what has been so impressive is how Greenpeace teams around Europe have responded to the incident. This week, the ship that delivered the toxic cargo, the Probo Koala, was in the Estonian port of Paldiski and a judge in the Ivory Coast had asked the Estonian authorities to detain the ship but with typical Euro-dithering, nothing happened. That's when the Arctic Sunrise, which happened to be in the Baltic doing (funnily enough) work on toxics and the proposed REACH legislation, moved into position and blocked the Probo Koala.
Three days later, with the blockade still in place, the Estonian government finally decided to investigate and early indications are that samples taken from the ship match the poison in Africa. The praise didn't come more glowing than when Stavros Dimas, European Environment Commissioner no less, said: "I think what Greenpeace did was actually very important in filling the gaps in the implementation of European law."
It's tragic that it takes the actions of a few committed individuals to shame the authorities into acting when such a massive environmental crime has been committed (possibly even a legal one as well, as shipment of the waste may have breached the Basel Ban).
True, it's a coincidence that the Arctic Sunrise was in the area and able to act, but then that's what we do. Even if my contribution comes from behind a desk in London.
