| 20/01/2006
- International — The inflatable boats have been hauled in.
The crew is exhausted, the ships need fuel, and it's time
to take the campaign to save the whales from the high seas
to the High Street, (or from the bounding main to the Main
street, if you're North American). Activists like Texas, Andrew,
Lally, Nathan, Mikey, Phil and all the other folks you've
come to know through the Oceans Defenders weblog have done
all they can. They've saved whales. They've slowed down the
hunt. They've alerted millions of people around the world
to the whale killing they've witnessed in the Southern Ocean.
Now it's up to all of us to act on what they've shown us --
and finish the job.
We've spent 61 days at sea, half of them in front of the
harpoons. We've broken and fixed every boat we have at least
once. We've been rammed. We've had explosive harpoons fired
over our heads. Our activists have risked their lives in
the freezing Antarctic waters and spent their holiday season
away from family and loved ones for the chance to save a
whale.
Here's a message from expedition leader Shane Rattenbury,
to you ocean defenders and all who have been part of this
exciting campaign for the last few months:
Logistically we cannot remain in the Southern Ocean any
longer, but this certainly isn't the last you'll hear of
us.
The 57 crew on both Greenpeace ships want to thank everyone
who has supported our work down here by writing letters
of support to newspapers and websites, and also to thank
our millions of individual financial supporters around the
world. It's thanks to our new faster ship, the Esperanza,
that we were able to keep up with the whalers the whole
time, and we couldn't be down here without that support.
For a month now we have dogged, delayed and disrupted the
whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and
have no doubt that they have fallen far behind in their
bid to slaughter 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin
whales. It is our hope that this struggle will inspire people
to help us defend whales, so that it goes down in history
as the last time the peaceful silence in the Sanctuary is
broken by the sound of a grenade-tipped harpoon.
Whaling is not just the concern of governments and cryptic
political meetings. There is big business involved. While
whaling is not profitable, you might be surprised to learn
of some famous seafood companies' connections to whaling.
We're asking you to help us make the whaling stop.
Many companies outside Japan are owned by, or have contracts
with, Nissui, the corporation which owns one third of Kyodo
Senpaku, which owns the whaling fleet. We aim to expose
exactly how whalers profit from the fish you buy, and demand
those companies disassociate themselves from whaling.
Nissui need to know that whaling is bad for business.
When you sign up as an Ocean Defender, we'll send you ongoing
information about who these companies are and how you can
pressure them.
Already in Argentina, activists have convinced a popular
seafood company to cancel contracts with Nissui corporation.
In just 2 days over 21,000 cyberactivists contacted the
company and downloaded stickers to place on Santa Elena
products in supermarkets, to highlight that the company
was implicated in the killing of whales.
In the US, we've hit whaler-owned seafood giant Gortons
with nearly 40,000 letters from all around the world.
In Europe, Nissui is being hammered with pressure to use
its one-third ownership of Kyodo Senpaku to pressure for
a shut down of the whaling fleet.
And while we continue to pressure those targets, we're
opening a new front with Sealord, a New Zealand-based fishing
company that is 50% owned by Nissui. Sealord sells to seafood
distributors all over the world, and we'll be targetting
products that whalers profit from wherever they're sold.
You can send a message to Sealord now.
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