Greenpeace

This morning we stood on the dock of Pier 9 in Honolulu and watched as the Esperanza appeared over the horizon. I was surprised by how excited I was to see her - this was my first time seeing a Greenpeace ship in person. As she got closer, we waved to the crew, and soon we were able to make out recognizable faces, including Bill Richardson, our Deputy Executive Director in the U.S. office.

Once the Espy pulled into port, I got to meet new faces of the crew, and everyone was so friendly. I also met some supporters who were just as excited to see a Greenpeace ship as I was.

Taking a tour with some of the outgoing crew was almost surreal - this is going to be my home for the next 3 weeks. 

By 2:00, the ship and her crew were welcomed by Hawai'i's Lt. Governor, James Aiona. He stressed the importance of marine protected areas like the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, and thanked Greenpeace for our work defending the oceans.

But by the evening, we got to blow off some steam and get to know each other over dinner.  I think this is going to be an amazing experience, and I couldn't ask for a better group of people to share it with. I'm really looking forward to getting onboard tomorrow.

Yesterday we arrived at Sunset Beach and greeted volunteers for the Surfrider's Foundation for another day of beach clean up. Sunset Beach is where one of the world's largest surf competitions will start at the end of this week. It was such a beautiful beach, and the waves were just amazing. We interviewed several people about their experiences with trash pollution. Rick, has been a lifeguard at Sunset beach for 25 years. He told us about the changes he's seen in that time, and the impact of overfishing and pollution. One of the volunteers I spoke with was telling me about an endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal pup that she helped guard recently, but after weeks of protection, the pup was tragically killed in an abandoned fishing net. This was justone example of the impacts trash is having on wildlife here in Hawai'i and around the world.

After the clean up, one of the local activists, Jeanne, invited us back to her house for lunch. Jeanne has been a Greenpeace supporter since the 70's, and we met her at the Patagonia event earlier this week. Lunch was such a treat, and Jeanne's house just happened to be right on the beach! So of course we took a little stroll and jumped in a few waves after lunch. I mean, once the beach is clean, someone's gotta enjoy it, right?

Today we're off to greet the Esperanza and her crew as they pull into port. More on that later...

 -Marie

A toy soldier, a toothbrush, ribbon from an unwrapped gift, duct tape, a Nestle candy bar wrapper, bottle caps, ropes, fishing nets, and an explosion of plastic bits... not exactly ingredients for a perfect day at the beach. These were just a few of the things we collected on our beach clean up this morning.

We arrived at Kahuku beach bright and early this morning, but not quite early enough - the community-organized beach clean up had already begun. As soon as we set foot on the beach, we started noticing little specs of blue. I bent down, and found fragments of plastic. As I started picking them up, the sheer magnitude of what was happening hit me - these little fragments were everywhere, and they were being washed up from the ocean - from the very trash vortex we'll be investigating when we get onboard the Esperanza. We spent an hour filling our trash bags with pieces of fishing rope, plastic pieces of all shapes and sizes, when we realized the rest of the volunteers were around a bend in the beach. We picked up trash as we worked our way over to them.

As I turned the corner, my heart just sank - the trash was so much worse on this side of the beach. The entire beach was speckled with plastic bits - it literally looked like the kitchen countertop in our office, made of recycled containers. But this was exactly the opposite - evidence of all of the plastic swirling around the Pacific Ocean that hasn't been recycled, hasn't been thrown in the garbage. It was the worst result of littering, and every piece of plastic I saw represented a massive threat to wildlife, like sea turtles and albatross, who eat these pieces of plastic mistaking them for food, and end up starving to death, because they can't digest any of it. I used to wonder how an animal could mistake a plastic bottle for food, but today, as I bent down and looked closely at the debris, it wasn't until I picked something up that I could see the difference between clear or white plastic, and bits of shell that are natural on the beach. Once plastic breaks apart, it's hard to tell what it once was.

Margaret, one of the organizers of the clean up, told me that this part of the beach is worse because of the wind and currents. Here, in addition to all the little bits of plastic, were huge items like a tire, and a huge, heavy tangle of fishing nets. It was so depressing that I really felt like sitting down and giving up. But that didn't last, how could I give up, when the locals here come out all the time, and keep working to clean the beach?

So, we'll be at another beach clean up tomorrow, working with the Surfrider's Foundation, and we'll be back at Kahuku on Thursday, this time with the Esperanza anchored offshore. 

-Marie 

Aloha!

I’m writing from Honolulu, awaiting the arrival of the Esperanza. This is my second time in Hawaii, and I’m excited to be here again. In Maui last year, I was so lucky to see humpback whales during their migration, spinner dolphins, and sea turtles – talk about seeing some of the top animals on my life list. I’ll never forget seeing baby whales learning how to breach, or snorkeling above a green sea turtle.

This time around, I’ll be boarding the Esperanza for 3 weeks, as we celebrate the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, and investigate the trash vortex swirling between Hawai’i and California.

I arrived a couple of days ago with some other Greenpeace folks, including Buffy and Steve who will be getting onboard with me. We’ve been fortunate enough to participate in a couple of community events here in Honolulu, including the Bioneers conference at the Manoa campus of the University of Hawai’i, and a warm welcome at the Patagonia store in Hale'iwa. The people here have been amazing, and what they've managed to accomplish through local activism is an inspiration to us all. My favorite line came from our Bioneers host, Joshua Cooper, when he explained the meaning of the Hawaiian expression, ma ka hane ka ike: in the action, that’s where knowledge is. Well, I think that sums up Greenpeace pretty well, and describes what we’re here for.

I hope you’ll follow our journey and share in the knowledge we discover.

-Marie 

First, the good news: NOAA Fisheries has announced that they are scrapping efforts to promote the disastrous Open Ocean Aquaculture bill.  NOAA's Bill Hogarth says they'll come back next year with a revised proposal that will have more environmental safeguards.

Advocates pushing to open up U.S. waters between 3 and 200 miles offshore to fish farms have argued that this will take pressure off dwindling wild fish stocks.  Unfortunately, large scale open ocean farms are likely to do more harm than good.  These farms tend to use carnivorous fish, which still rely on wild fish for food.  In addition to the obvious problem with catching wild fish to feed farmed fish, there are also concerns about disease and parasites associated with dense concentrations of farmed fish - and about the steps taken to minimize these risks, such as use of genetically modified fish or antibiotics.

So it's definitely good news to hear that the next version of the bill will be more environmentally friendly, but it's pretty likely that the new bill won't fix the problems with open ocean aquaculture either.

On to the bad news:  after catching three billion pounds of Alaska pollock per year, the stock size is starting to decline.  The North Pacific Fishery Management Council announced a preliminary decision to reduce the Bering Sea pollock quota by over 4%, and rumors are flying that the reduction could ultimately be much larger.  Projections for 2008 are worse still. 

If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it comes in the hope that this will serve as a wake up call to fishery managers.  It's time to take a more precautionary, ecosystem-based approach to fishery management.  We need to leave enough fish in the ocean to feed the rest of the marine mammals, sea birds, and fish that depend on them for food - not to mention the fishing dependent communities that are already struggling from the impacts of "localized depletion." 

For the oceans -

John H