Category: Global

Glob­al

Friday 8th June 2007 — International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.

Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

Week of Iceland Actions in the Low Countries

16.03.2007
This morn­ing, Sav­ing Ice­land and the Dutch/Belgian envi­ron­men­tal­ist net­work Groen­Front! built a dam blockad­ing the entrance of the Ice­landic Embassy in Brus­sels (pho­to-report). Ear­li­er this week, a pick­et­line was held at the Ice­landic Con­sulate in Rot­ter­dam and the folk singer Armand, the “Dutch Bob Dylan”, per­formed songs of praise to Ice­landic nature. Last night, Earth­First! closed down both ALCOA’s Dutch head office in Drunen and an ALCOA fac­to­ry in Kerkrade, the Nether­lands in oppo­si­tion to heavy indus­try. The actions this week express grow­ing inter­na­tion­al con­cern on the plans for expan­sion of the alu­mini­um indus­try and megahy­dro in Ice­land and oth­er coun­tries such as Trinidad and Brazil.

16.03.2007
This morn­ing, Sav­ing Ice­land and the Dutch/Belgian envi­ron­men­tal­ist net­work Groen­Front! built a dam blockad­ing the entrance of the Ice­landic Embassy in Brus­sels (pho­to-report). Ear­li­er this week, a pick­et­line was held at the Ice­landic Con­sulate in Rot­ter­dam and the folk singer Armand, the “Dutch Bob Dylan”, per­formed songs of praise to Ice­landic nature. Last night, Earth­First! closed down both ALCOA’s Dutch head office in Drunen and an ALCOA fac­to­ry in Kerkrade, the Nether­lands in oppo­si­tion to heavy indus­try. The actions this week express grow­ing inter­na­tion­al con­cern on the plans for expan­sion of the alu­mini­um indus­try and megahy­dro in Ice­land and oth­er coun­tries such as Trinidad and Brazil.

http://www.savingiceland.org/node/694

14 Landrovers covered in Paintstripper

Four­teen 4x4s were cov­ered in painstrip­per in a Land Rover Deal­er­ship near Here­ford in an action against cli­mate change. Slo­gans were also sprayed while the vehi­cles were left to ruin.

This action was tak­en to warn any deal­er­ship spe­cial­is­ing in these cars, that they are a tar­get. Dri­ving one of these vehi­cles is the equiv­e­lent to leav­ing the TV on for 32 years, cars like this must be stopped in their tracks.

Four­teen 4x4s were cov­ered in painstrip­per in a Land Rover Deal­er­ship near Here­ford in an action against cli­mate change. Slo­gans were also sprayed while the vehi­cles were left to ruin.

This action was tak­en to warn any deal­er­ship spe­cial­is­ing in these cars, that they are a tar­get. Dri­ving one of these vehi­cles is the equiv­e­lent to leav­ing the TV on for 32 years, cars like this must be stopped in their tracks.

Cli­mate Change is the most mas­sive glob­al­ly destruc­tive issue that is fac­ing us today, we can not wait for any­one else to take action but our­selves. The new dawn is com­ing for direct action in defence of the Earth. There will be no more tol­er­ance.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front

concrete lock-on tips (following Parliament Square blockade)

If they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Lock-on after drillingIf they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Nev­er ever use ordi­nary “build­ing” or soft sand which is only used for brick­lay­ing and will make very crumbly con­crete indeed. You should be using all in bal­last which is sharp sand already mixed with peb­bles. In some parts of the coun­try — most­ly the north — you can’t get this so will have to mix your own using SHARP sand and mixed size peb­bles from pea size up to the size of brazil nuts or so.

Reclaim the streets – Auckland

4 Mar 2007 K road rocked to the sound of cli­mate change pro­test­ers yes­ter­day as cops blocked off the road for a reclaim he streets style par­ty. Around 200 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in snow fights, stalls and a people’s assem­bly with many onlook­ers inter­est­ed. Bands played sam­ba and world style music along with a punk band, … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Reclaim the streets – Auck­land”

Auckland 07 RTS 1Auckland 07 RTS 2Auckland 07 RTS 3Auckland 07 RTS 4
Auckland 07 RTS 5

4 Mar 2007
K road rocked to the sound of cli­mate change pro­test­ers yes­ter­day as cops blocked off the road for a reclaim he streets style par­ty. Around 200 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in snow fights, stalls and a people’s assem­bly with many onlook­ers inter­est­ed. Bands played sam­ba and world style music along with a punk band, and peo­ple danced across a street nor­mal­ly filled with cars. A people’s assem­bly and speak­ers spoke about the dis­as­trous effects of cli­mate change if we do not act now. The par­tic­i­pants vot­ed for free and fre­quent pub­lic trans­port and then vot­ed in favour of a peace­ful non vio­lent rev­o­lu­tion (they didn’t even give us a chance to vote against this one) The Save Hap­py Val­ley Auck­land Coali­tion talked about the impor­tance of stop­ping coal min­ing in Aotearoa and a group of pub­lic sup­port­ers wore “save malcolm’s snails” T – shirts, refer­ring to one of the most active cam­paign­ers for SHV in Auck­land. After the peo­ples assem­bly a car was sym­bol­i­cal­ly smashed up, spray-paint­ed and plants were put inside. Over­all the day was mod­er­ate­ly suc­cess­ful inform­ing passers by and pro­vid­ing a fun out­ing for cli­mate activists but the turn out was fair­ly small.

http://www.aucklandsburning.blogspot.com

Rospuda camp of road protesters temporarily suspended

Due to agree­ment with road builders and the law not allow­ing to dis­turb the birds in lying eggs the Rospu­da camp at the Rospu­da Riv­er in Poland is tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed. Ecol­o­gists are locat­ed in near­by vil­lages or await in oth­er cities ready for imme­di­ate action. If You need to con­tact them and await with them ready for action, then here are the data of Pol­ish Green­peace:

Due to agree­ment with road builders and the law not allow­ing to dis­turb the birds in lying eggs the Rospu­da camp at the Rospu­da Riv­er in Poland is tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed. Ecol­o­gists are locat­ed in near­by vil­lages or await in oth­er cities ready for imme­di­ate action. If You need to con­tact them and await with them ready for action, then here are the data of Pol­ish Green­peace:
http://www.greenpeace.org/poland/o‑nas/kontakt

Antarctica: Sea Shepherd Ship Holed during Collision with Whaling Ship

12.02.2007

The Sea Shep­herd ship, Robert Hunter, has been holed in its star­board bow, and its port stern sec­tion above the water­line, dur­ing a col­li­sion with the whale spot­ter ship Kaiko Maru , accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd’s pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son. No injuries have been incurred by crew on both ships, and nei­ther ship is in dan­ger of sink­ing. A pod of whales being chased by the Japan­ese ship escaped.

Farley Mowat holed12.02.2007

The Sea Shep­herd ship, Robert Hunter, has been holed in its star­board bow, and its port stern sec­tion above the water­line, dur­ing a col­li­sion with the whale spot­ter ship Kaiko Maru , accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd’s pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son. No injuries have been incurred by crew on both ships, and nei­ther ship is in dan­ger of sink­ing. A pod of whales being chased by the Japan­ese ship escaped.

Exact details of the col­li­sion are still con­fus­ing. It appears the two Sea Shep­herd ships caught the Kaiko Maru chas­ing a pod of whales near the Bal­leny Islands in Antarc­ti­ca, south of New Zealand. Attempts were made by Sea Shep­herd activists to dis­able the pro­pel­lor of the Kaiko Maru, it appears with some suc­cess. Sea Shep­herd say on their web­site “At one point dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, the Kaiko Maru turned to star­board and struck the Robert Hunter.” Accord­ing to Dr Hiroshi Hatana­ka from the ICR on their web­site “The Robert Hunter rammed the Kaiko Maru.”

“Sea Shep­herd threw smoke pots onto the Kaiko Maru and released ropes and nets to entan­gle her screw. Its pro­peller has been dam­aged by them. The ves­sel is strand­ed at the moment and has already put out sev­er­al dis­tress calls.” said Dr Hiroshi Hatana­ka, the Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research on the ICR web­site.

After the col­li­sion between the Robert Hunter and Kaiko Maru, the Japan­ese ves­sel was effec­tive­ly block­ad­ed against sea ice.

The Japan­ese ves­sel issued a mar­itime dis­tress call say­ing that it was under attack and in imme­di­ate dan­ger. Accord­ing to the Sea Shep­herd web­site “Sea Shep­herd acknowl­edged this dis­tress sig­nal, but they Japan­ese ves­sel refused to say what dis­tress they were in.”

The Green­peace ship also respond­ed to the dis­tress call, offer­ing imme­di­ate assis­tance, head­ing at full speed to their posi­tion. Accord­ing to Dave on the Green­peace weblog “Accord­ing to the Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre of New Zealand, first reports stat­ed the Kaiko Maru was ‘under attack.’ Lat­er reports claimed a col­li­sion between the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Robert Hunter and the Kaiko Maru, with the Robert Hunter receiv­ing a hole in the hull above the water line and the Kaiko Maru suf­fer­ing unspec­i­fied dam­age to its pro­peller.”

“At approx­i­mate­ly 18.15, the Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre of New Zealand request­ed that the Esper­an­za ‘stand down’. We informed the Res­cue Cen­tre that we would remain with­in VHF range in case assis­tance was need­ed. At 20:15 we received what’s known as a ‘Seelonce Fee­nee’, which means that the dis­tress call is now over.” con­clud­ed Dave from Green­peace.

Jon­ny Vasic, Inter­na­tion­al direc­tor of Sea Shep­herd, on board the Robert Hunter described the col­li­sion in a Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald report “It was a loud noise — a big bang. I actu­al­ly shud­dered a bit. The ships col­lid­ed two times, once side by side, and once when they rammed into us. I haven’t inspect­ed it yet, but they did some dam­age to our hull. … We are here to keep those guys out of the whale sanc­tu­ary. We are not dam­aged beyond repair. We are still sea­wor­thy,” Vasic said.

Both Sea Shep­herd ships have been away from port for sev­er­al weeks and are run­ning low on fuel. Cap­tain Wat­son said “We’re only prob­a­bly good for the next few days,”

Accord­ing to a report in The Age news­pa­per Cap­tain Wat­son warned that unless anti-whal­ing gov­ern­ments such as Aus­tralia took stronger action, he might try to ram the stern of the Nis­shin Maru.

“Do whale defend­ers have to die down here for the world to notice and take action against the crim­i­nal activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whalers?” he said. “For this rea­son it has been decid­ed to stop the oper­a­tions of the Japan­ese float­ing slaugh­ter­house, the Nis­shin Maru, by ram­ming one of the ships up the slip­way of that foul, sadis­tic piece of killing machin­ery.” he told a reporter for the Age.

Cap­tain Wat­son has appealed to the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to enforce its ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters in the Antarc­tic against whal­ing, just as it has enforced laws against fish poach­ing in its ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

Both Sea Shep­herd ves­sels do not have any cur­rent reg­is­tra­tion from a State, and have been labelled as ‘pirate ships’. Japan has pres­sured both the UK and Belize to can­cel mar­itime reg­is­tra­tion of the two Sea Shep­herd ves­sels.

Back­ground:
* SF Indy­bay IMC — Antarc­tic Direct Action: Japan­ese Claims of Injuries are Bogus says Sea Shep­herd
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/09/18360001.php
* SF Indy­bay IMC — US Gov­ern­ment Refus­es to Act against Japan on Whal­ing
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/09/18360043.php
* SF Indy­bay IMC — Sea Shep­herd crew miss­ing in Antarc­tic waters
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/08/18359650.php

Sources:
1. The Age — Whal­ing pro­test­ers threat­en Japan­ese ship
http://tinyurl.com/2tnceo
2. Sea Shep­herd — Sea Shep­herd Saves Whale Pod from Whalers
http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_070211_2.html
3. ICR — RESEARCH VESSEL DAMAGED IN SEA SHEPHERD ATTACK
http://www.icrwhale.org/070212Release.htm
4. Green­peace — We con­demn vio­lence in the South­ern Ocean
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2007/02/we_condemn_violence_in_th.html
5. Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald — ‘Pirate’ ship col­lides with whaler
http://tinyurl.com/34uhf3

Sea Shepherd Engages Japanese Whalers

Feb­ru­ary 9th, 2007 0830 Hours. (Auck­land N.Z. time)

The Sea Shep­herd ships Far­ley Mowat and the Robert Hunter have been engaged in a con­fronta­tion with the Japan­ese Whal­ing fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru since 0530 Hours this morn­ing.

Feb­ru­ary 9th, 2007 0830 Hours. (Auck­land N.Z. time)

The Sea Shep­herd ships Far­ley Mowat and the Robert Hunter have been engaged in a con­fronta­tion with the Japan­ese Whal­ing fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru since 0530 Hours this morn­ing.

When the Robert Hunter first approached the Nis­shin Maru there were three hunter killer ves­sels with the moth­er ship. These ves­sels quick­ly fled north­ward. The Nis­shin Maru fled East straight towards the Far­ley Mowat. At two miles from the Far­ley Mowat, the Nis­shin Maru turned and fled back west again.

There was a pod of whales in the area near the whalers. The Sea Shep­herd crew are hap­py to report that these whales fled and are now safe from the Japan­ese har­poons.

The Sea Shep­herd crew have suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered six litres of Butyric Acid onto the flens­ing deck of the Nis­shin Maru. This “but­ter acid” is a non­tox­ic obnox­ious smelling sub­stance. The foul smell has cleared the flens­ing deck and stopped all work of cut­ting up whales.

Sea Shep­herd crew in Zodi­acs have nailed plates to the drain out­lets on the Nis­shin Maru that spill the blood of the whales from the flens­ing deck into the sea. This is back­ing up the blood onto the flens­ing decks. The plates are secured by Hilt nail guns that dri­ve steel nails through sol­id steel.

Sea Shep­herd has relayed the coor­di­nates to the Green­peace ves­sel Esper­an­za. Despite Green­peace’s refusal to coop­er­ate with the Sea Shep­herd ships, the whales need every anti-whal­ing ship in the area. Green­peace refus­es to give Sea Shep­herd their posi­tion so it is unknown how long it will take them to reach the area where the whal­ing fleet is oper­at­ing.

Sea Shep­herd was able to out­ma­neu­ver the Japan­ese Satel­lite track­ing sys­tem by tak­ing the ships south of the Bal­leny Islands through heavy ice. Thir­ty years of ice nav­i­ga­tion oppos­ing the Cana­di­an seal slaugh­ter has proven quite help­ful. The Satel­lite sur­veil­lance pro­gram can­not track a ship’s wake through the ice. “We came in the back door out of the freez­er so to speak,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd ships have been search­ing for the Japan­ese fleet for five weeks and have cov­ered thou­sands of square miles of ocean.

The crew of both Sea Shep­herd ships are relieved that the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been found and is now under pur­suit and engaged in con­fronta­tion with the Robert Hunter and the Far­ley Mowat.

You can sup­port Sea Shep­herd’s Oper­a­tion Leviathan by vis­it­ing their web­page and mak­ing an on-line dona­tion here:  http://www.seashepherd.org/donate.html

Colombian farmers evicted by British mining companies

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Many com­mu­ni­ties have been forced from their land since the mine opened in the 1970s. The vil­lage of Taba­co was demol­ished in 2001 just after British-based com­pa­nies bought into the project. Many inhab­i­tants accept­ed the inad­e­quate finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion on offer, oth­ers are still hold­ing out for com­mu­ni­ty relo­ca­tion so that they can con­tin­ue liv­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty and farm­ing the land as they did before.

The British-based com­pa­nies that now own the mine are Anglo Amer­i­can, BHP­Bil­li­ton and Xstra­ta. All raise mon­ey on the Lon­don Stock Exchange. Anglo Amer­i­can has its head office in Lon­don. Many pen­sion funds invest in these com­pa­nies. Many ordi­nary work­ing peo­ple in Britain, with­out know­ing it, are ben­e­fit­ing from the destruc­tion of farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia by the world’s rich­est min­ing multi­na­tion­als. All three com­pa­nies have good rep­u­ta­tions as social­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble enter­pris­es. The real­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent. Come and hear the com­mu­ni­ties’ side of the sto­ry

Loca­tion: The Audi­to­ri­um, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al UK, The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2
Con­tact:  info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk
(near­est tube Old Street)

Sea Shepherd flagship now running as a Pirate

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship Far­ley Mowat is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. The ship cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Far­ley Mowat has no home port and can be siezed and sunk by any navy.

Farley Mowat pirate ship

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship Far­ley Mowat is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. The ship cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Far­ley Mowat has no home port and can be siezed and sunk by any navy.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship, ‘Far­ley Mowat’, is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. We are at sea with­out a flag, in search of ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions in hos­tile and remote waters at the bot­tom of the world.

The Far­ley Mowat cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Belize reg­istry had only been issued ten days before on Decem­ber 19, 2006

The Belize reg­istry was sought after Britain pulled the reg­istry in ear­ly Decem­ber the same day it was issued. In Octo­ber, the Far­ley Mowat, reg­is­tered under the Cana­di­an flag since April, 2002, had her reg­istry sus­pend­ed by Cana­da.

This is all appar­ent­ly part of a strat­e­gy by Japan to use its eco­nom­ic mus­cle to lean on any nation that allows us to be reg­is­tered under their flag. Accord­ing to a cred­i­ble legal source in Mel­bourne, the Far­ley Mowat as an unreg­is­tered pirate ves­sel may be inter­dict­ed at will by any naval ves­sel of any gov­ern­ment, its crew arrest­ed, and the ship sunk.

‘This is incred­i­ble but not sur­pris­ing’, respond­ed Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, ‘The oceans are crawl­ing with poach­ers fly­ing flags of con­ve­nience and the Japan­ese and Nor­we­gian reg­is­tered whalers are ille­gal­ly slaugh­ter­ing whales in sanc­tu­ar­ies and killing endan­gered species, yet we are forced to have our flag struck for oppos­ing these ille­gal activ­i­ties.’

The Far­ley Mowat will con­tin­ue on to the South­ern Oceans with­out a flag.

‘We have a mis­sion and that mis­sion is to save whales’, said Cap­tain Wat­son, ‘We will not sur­ren­der this ship to any navy and we will not com­ply with any order to can­cel our cam­paign. If any­one wish­es to stop us from pro­tect­ing whales they will have to sink us.’ The cap­tain and the crew of the Far­ley Mowat are not con­cerned about being called pirates.’

‘It was not the British Navy that end­ed pira­cy in the Caribbean, it was Cap­tain Hen­ry Mor­gan who did that and he was a pirate’, Said Cap­tain Wat­son, ‘I am proud to add my name to the long list of hon­ourable and noble pirates like Sir Fran­cis Drake, John Paul Jones and Jean LaFitte. To that end we have our own ver­sion of the Pret­ty Red or Joli Rouge and it is the crossed shepherd’s staff and Neptune’s tri­dent under a human skull engraved with the yin and yang of a dol­phin and a whale. If they want us to be pirates than we will be damn pirates but we will not aban­don the whales to the agony and mis­ery of the har­poons with­out a fight. We are pirates of com­pas­sion in pur­suit of pirates of prof­it.’

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has been oppos­ing ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1977 and 2007 marks the 30th anniver­sary of Sea Shep­herd high seas inter­ven­tions against whalers and ille­gal fish­ing oper­a­tions in the world’s oceans.

Dur­ing the entire three decades of Sea Shep­herd activ­i­ties not one per­son has been injured and not one Sea Shep­herd activists has been con­vict­ed of a felony crime. Sea Shep­herd inter­venes against ille­gal activ­i­ties in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ples estab­lished by and con­tained with­in the Unit­ed Nation World Char­ter for Nature.