Waldermar, captain of the Esperanza, writes about his personal motivations for bringing the ship to the Arctic...
I'm from South America, the land of the Incas, the Guaraníes, the Wichis, the Tobas, the Mapuches, the Onas, and other native nations.
The Europeans came about 500 years ago promising progress and wealth. They came for the natural resources. The gold, the silver, the iron, the fish and finally the oil. And they took it all...
The settlers took over the land, they brought their own people to exploit, manage and administrate their adventure. They imposed their religion and culture, and their view of what progress, happiness, development and wealth are.
At the beginning of the 20th Century my ancestors came to Argentina as part of a wave of migration from Germany, Poland and Italy. They came with the promise of "hacer la América" (do the Américas), which meant getting rich fast and returning to the Motherland. But they never left, they were also cheated.
Since the white man’s arrival, there have never been decent jobs available for the natives, and so their population has decreased near to extinction. Nowadays, the remaining Argentine natives are marginalized, they are poor, sick and isolated and have lost their land forever. Does this seem familiar to you?
I have a very strong impression that oil will not bring nirvana to Greenland. The Arctic is one of the last frontiers for the energy giants. I understand Greenlanders desire prosperity, but I doubt that Greenlanders will constitute the workforce for the oil industry and fear that they will loose their traditions and livelihood. And that’s before I have even mentioned the likelihood of a disastrous oil spill like in the Gulf of Mexico.
I refuse to be part of what my ancestors did in South America. I belong to a new generation - to the people of the 21st Century - to a higher level of consciousness. This is why I came to the Arctic with the Esperanza - to push for a different way of looking at unexploited areas of Earth and to stop oil exploration in one of the last frontiers.
I believe we can end our addiction to fossil fuels, grow up and evolve.
I believe we can move beyond oil.
--Waldermar
Image: Waldermar talks to the operations manager of the Stena Don oil rig just before a group of Greenpeace climbers boarded the rig to shut down Cairn Energy's drilling operations in the Arctic. Ben, comms officer on board, stands in the background. © Greenpeace/ Will Rose
