In Washington, you never know who you might run in to, including the rich and powerful. On my way home from work recently, I stopped at Olsson's Books to return some DVD rentals. I was immediately struck by the long lines at the registers.  The last time I'd seen such a crowd was for a book signing by Kristen Breitweiser.  Kristen is one of the 9/11 widows who fought for the 9/11 Commission report. Her book, Wake-Up Call, is a moving account of the loss of her husband at the World Trade Center and how she became a leading voice for holding our leaders accountable.  She has also joined Greenpeace in urging Congress to require U.S. chemical plants to convert to safer chemicals and processes to prevent them from becoming targets of terrorism.

As I scanned the crowd, one face jumped out at me, Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department. He was waiting on line with an armful of books. The reason for the crowd was more mundane, a 50%-off-everything sale because the store is about to close.

My mind raced, what would Kristen Breitweiser do? I looked in my book bag and found a copy of a June 10th letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to Congress.  The letter was in opposition to chemical security legislation (H.R. 5577) adopted by the Homeland Security Committee in March. The DHS letter also mirrored the chemical industry's lobbying agenda.

Knowing Chertoff had been criticized for a lack of accountability in the wake of the devastation of New Orleans after Katrina, I decided to appeal to his self-professed independence. After he completed his purchases I introduced myself and showed him the letter and asked him to reconsider his opposition to this critical legislation.

As Chertoff looked at the letter he clearly recognized it as well as the difficulty in defending it.  He abruptly said, "if you want to talk to me, you'll have to go through channels...I don't do DRIVE-BYS." I could see why he’d want to avoid a public debate about his position but comparing my question to a "drive-by," especially in D.C., was way out of proportion.  So I said, "Sorry but as a taxpayer I'm concerned about the millions of Americans at risk from poison gas release due to a terrorist attack or accident at any one of 100 U.S. chemical plants."  He then seemed to realize he may have over reacted and said, "what's holding up the legislation is not me but a rivalry between two congressional Committees" and then he walked away.

However passing the buck is not a sufficient answer. At a June 12th hearing, the House Environment and Hazardous Materials (EHM) Subcommittee grilled Chertoff's DHS for failing to provide the Committee with requested input on legislation. Meanwhile the DHS had already sent their June 10th letter to a different Committee embracing the chemical industry's legislative agenda. Both Committees see through this divide and conquer tactic. The EHM Subcommittee expects to move legislation in July.  Greenpeace and a broad coalition of labor, public interest and environmental groups are pushing to get the legislation to the House floor as soon as possible.

On June 17th Polico ran an excellent summary of the situation at:
www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11123.html

-- Rick Hind 

After a week of negotiations WCPFC with over 360 people from many corners of the planet you would think that we would be able to come to at least SOME agreements on how we're going to save the Pacific yellow fin and big eye tuna stocks right? Perhaps it was just me being naive but I was really expecting SOMETHING to happen. After endless days inside a huge room without windows and lots of serious people in suits, the two most valuable tuna species in the Pacific are no closer to recovery than they were before. The reduction in fishing effort that the scientists were recommending was totally ignored by Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea with Japan leading the pack and earning themselves not one but two "tuna destroyer" Greenpeace awards.

Yet again shortsighted economics continue to rule the day putting the environment, fish stocks, Pacific Island economies and the fishing industry itself at risk. This fisheries commission is now failing miserably just like all the others and as you can tell, I'm pretty frustrated about it! I came here with high hopes and of seeing measures get adopted that would ensure the sustainability of the last tuna frontier in the world. Tuna is very important to Pacific island economies and the last thing they need in addition to dealing with the effects of climate change is to have their fish stocks crash!

I have actually been dreading writing this update because it felt like all I had was bad news but there is a light shining at the end of this tunnel because the Greenpeace oceans team, as usual has a few tricks left up their sleeve :-)

 

Not too long ago I remember reading that fish stocks in the Pacific were relatively healthy and that it was the only region in the world where tuna was not being overfished. But a lot has changed in just a few years and scientists are now saying that Pacific tuna stocks are severely threatened from overfishing and that the situation is critical. The Pacific countries are now faced with a very difficult challenge and the fate of many economies is at stake.

I am in Guam right now at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting where more than 20 nations will be negotiating agreements on the region's fisheries, which mainly consist of 4 tuna species (yellow fin, big-eye, skip jack and albacore). The greatest concern is over the decline in yellow fin and big eye stocks which are the tunas that are sold to the sushi and sashimi markets.

Greenpeace has an observer delegation attending the meeting that consists of 5 oceans campaigners. Seni and Lagi are here from the Greenpeace Australia Pacific office in Fiji and Jason is here from the Sydney office. Sari is here from Greenpeace International in Amsterdam and Phil from Greenpeace USA arrives this evening. Inside the meeting they will be monitoring the negotiations and outside they are meeting with the delegates and encouraging the best solutions.

I am your trusty blogger for the meeting and will be letting you know exactly what happens here in Guam. You regularly get to see the heroic actions on the water but so rarely hear about the heroes who work long hours lobbying countries at important meetings like this. Of course the adrenalin levels aren’t quite the same but that doesn’t mean what goes on here isn’t exciting.

Pacific Island countries depend on tuna resources for income and food and this region has the most productive tuna fishery in the world providing over half of the total global tuna supply. Decisions made here will affect the lives of millions and determine the fate of a massive ecosystem. I don’t think you can get much more exciting than that!

We’re calling upon the WCPFC to get serious about protecting the Pacific’s valuable fish stocks by cutting fishing effort in the region by 50%, banning all trans shipments at sea (this is when fish is off-loaded onto another boat, which allows vessels to avoid reporting their total catch by not needing to come into port) and establishing a no-take marine reserve for species managed by the WCPFC. Indications suggest that some of the industrial fishing nations will block efforts to conserve the tuna and already it seems that some of them are making threats to cut the funding of the Commission if expensive measures are put into place to regulate the fisheries. If only they were as keen on cutting fishing effort as they are to cut the funding of the Commission, which only has 8 staff and costs, les than 0.12% of the annual value of the fishery.

The meeting officially starts tomorrow and I will be making a radical physical transformation that I will tell you about later. I'll be posting an update on Tuesday. 

-- Lisa 

Today 6 whales riding segways went looking for Prime Minister Fukuda of Japan who was meeting with President Bush today in Washington, DC. Neo, a humpback whale and mother, penned a letter to the PM asking him to use his authority to cancel this years whale hunt and to end commercial whaling for all time.

 
Neo and her family had a sighting of the Prime Minister at the White House, but he was too busy with Bush to chat with the whales. She and her family then went to Japanese media outlets to try to tell their story, and then the US State Dept to enlist the help of the U.S. government.

Failing to find a way to meet the Prime Minister at these locations, the whales went to the Japanese embassy where a Japanese diplomat came outside, thanked us for coming and took the letter to the Prime Minister.

Check out the slideshow!
 

    
 

I am back in the office after a long day last Thursday. I have been working on environmental issues full-time for over 7 years now and yesterday was the first time I crossed a police line and got arrested.

I felt completely confident I was doing the right thing by engaging in civil disobedience to demand that our governmental take real action, not false steps to curb global warming. Global warming is the real challenge of my generation and the generations to come.

If we do not take bold and swift action now I fear to think about the future world we will live in. Last Thursday, myself and 48 other activists protested Bush and his charade of a meeting on global warming. Bush is trying to take the world in the wrong direction by working outside and not engaging in the international Kyoto Treaty process, and his meeting is nothing more than a propaganda effort to deflect international criticism.

I was there on Thursday to do my part to show that Bush does not stand for the vast majority of Americans on this important issue. If Bush was serious about moving the country forward on global warming he would sign the Kyoto Protocol, period.

A friend of mine mentioned the other night that when people engage in civil disobedience an issue has reached a tipping point, he pointed to woman rights and the civil rights movement as examples. I think that this statement rings true to an extent.

Last Thursday, I shared a cell with two women, one of them was a grandmother and the other worked at a University of Maryland, like me they had ever been arrested before. They were not the stereotype of the 'lefty environmental extremist'. Across the country people from all walks of life are taking serious and bold action to preserve the future of our planet by demanding action on global warming.

Some might think a few people getting arrested is not going to do anything. While it may be true that our protest was a completely symbolic act I believe it is important to show the Bush does NOT speak for many Americans with his criminal stance on global warming.

I have always been inspired by the bold and brave acts of people in our history like Alice Paul and John Lewis. I hope that the movement to fight global warming continues to gain momentum like other social movements. It must, we have no other option but to force action. Our survival depends on it.

 

--Kate Smolski