Forest crimes and climate crimes: Greenpeace ships take action

Posted by bex — 10 November 2008 at 3:48pm - Comments

The hoses are turned on a climber, attached to the anchor chain of the Gran Couva. © Greenpeace/Novis

The Esperanza in Indonesia

The small (wet) figure above is a crew member of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. Darkness has fallen on the port of Dumai (Indonesia) since this photograph was taken several hours ago, but our climber is still there, in the dark, occupying the anchor chain and preventing the tanker from setting off to the Netherlands with its 27,000 tonne cargo of palm oil. As Jamie wrote on the Forests for Climate blog, it takes only one person to stop a giant palm oil tanker.

Dumai is the second largest port in Indonesia in terms of palm oil exports, and the Gran Couva is only one of several palm oil-carrying ships in the port today. The crew members of the Esperanza have been busy daubing the sides of the Gran Couva and three other ships with 'Forest Crime' and 'Climate Crime' in bright yellow letters.

They have good reason; over the past few days they've been witnessing first hand - from the air and from the ground - the destruction of the forests and peatlands in Riau from palm oil plantations. And although a member of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, palm oil giant Wilmar - who owns the cargo on the occupied ship - is among the culprits tearing up forests and peatlands to grow its oil palms.

You can follow the latest on the Forest for Climate blog - and write a letter to Indonesia's President.


The Rainbow Warrior in Belgium

Meanwhile, the Rainbow Warrior continues her work to get the world to Quit Coal, this time in Belgium. And on Friday, 80 Greenpeace volunteers occupied a potential climate crime scene of the future - the proposed site of E.on's new coal plant in Belgium. (Kingsnorth isn't the only coal plant E.on hopes to build in Europe - far from it.)

On the site of the Belgian plant - which would emit 6 million tonnes of CO2 per year - the Greenpeace volunteers set up over four thousand tiny windmills and painted the message "Flanders Quit Coal" on the tarmac. The full story is on our international site and Lisa's been blogging on Making Waves.

Follow Greenpeace UK