activism

In response to Rachel's recent blog about taking in part in direct actions in such a male-orientated world as Greenpeace, Esther explains that you don't necessarily have to climb tall buildings to have an impact.

Some women have a touch of the Lara Croft about them, but others - no matter how hard we try - would always prefer a nice bit of cake and a day out shopping to climbing up chimneys. Not that there is anything wrong with this – after all, there is more than one way to save the planet.

Junichi (right) and Toru (left) working on their defence during their trial (c) Sutton-Hibbert/Greenpeace

Two years ago, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki exposed a scandal involving government corruption entrenched within the tax-payer funded Japanese whaling industry. They are on trial for theft and trespass, and are awaiting the verdict due this coming Monday.

This will be the first blog Toru and I have written together, as up until recently our heavy bail restrictions have meant that we could not be in the same room or even talk to each other without a lawyer present.

The verdict in our trial is approaching, and on Monday 6 September we will know what our fate is. We don't really know what the result would be, all we know now is that it is going to show the status of Japanese democracy. It's a long way from where it was when this case started - our investigation  to end Japan's whaling.

With fake oil actions spilling out all over the place, it's high time someone did some skill sharing. Step up our international office with their "activist recipe for fake oil".

Basically, you mix up some molasses with some corn oil, corn starch, chocolate powder and some flour and away you go (well, there's a bit more to it than that - full recipe here).

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...

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.

Greenpeace took action in the Mediterranean yesterday to stop some French purse-seiners catching bluefin tuna. And it's fair to say, things kicked off a bit.

At long last, the weather had calmed down and the sea had warmed, and whilst the seas here certainly are not brimming with bluefin, we knew the seiners were sniffing some potential catch. When we saw them coming together at lunchtime we raced to the scene with both the Rainbow Warrior along with the Arctic Sunrise, our not-so-secret second ship in the Mediterranean.

When we got to the scene we quickly worked out that there was a net with some fish, so we deployed immediately to set about freeing the tuna. We knew it would be complicated, there were seven fairly big purse seiners, some support vessels and a whole heap of skiffs and inflatables working with the seiners. The smaller boats were holding the net open whislt the bigger boats were circling to try and protect the catch. Meanwhile a transport cage was being towed towards the scene for the tuna to be moved into. We knew we had to act fast.