Greenpeace victories: Antarctica.

The Antarctic is the only continent which remains relatively untouched by humans. 
Certainly, today it wouldn't be like this if things had ended in a different way almost 23 years ago... 

In the 1980s the Antarctic was threatened by commercial exploitation: it seems that under rocks and ice there is oil and mineral deposits and companies wanted to start prospecting. 
In reaction to that, the MV Greenpeace in 1987 moored in the Antarctic and stayed there until 1991. They monitored pollution from near bases run by the US and New Zealand and shed light on construction work that involved dynamiting the habitats of nesting penguins. 

In the seven years of this campaign, Greenpeace has gone from being considered as an outsider to a respected player in negotiations for the future of the continent. It earned the support of global personalities such as Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Jacques Cousteau and Ted Turner. 
International negotiations were routinely accompanied by Greenpeace demonstrations. 

So, Antarctica became a symbol for international cooperation and for the responsible treatment of the planet, underlining an old Greenpeace belief: nothing is impossible. 

Just crew! Rainbow Warrior III.

As you can see in my post of the 26th of June, the last weekend took place in Genova an open boat on the Rainbow Warrior III, the flagship of Greenpeace. 
I went there as a volunteer and I worked both Saturday and Sunday all day long. It was very tiring but also an incredible experience! 

The volunteers took the lots of people who came for a guided tour around the ship; they showed them the helideck, the conference room, the dashboard, the wooden statue of a dolphin called Dave on the bow, the bell and talked them about the story of the ship and about Greenpeace campaigns.
The visitors also had the unique chance to know the crew of the ship and its captain, Joel Steward. 
The crew is composed of people coming from differents parts of the world: there are Spanish, Panamanians, Finnish, Dutch, Italians, Americans, Canadians, Germans, Ukrainians, Russians and others. 

The ship is now navigating towards Palermo, where it's being docked the next weekend. This tour takes place in locations endangered by the extraction of fossil fuels to raise awareness among the population of those zones and to make their voices heard by the people who could change the situation. 
Please, help Greenpeace Italy by signing the petition against the use of fossil fuels! You can find it by clicking on this link http://www.greenpeace.org/italy/non-fossilizziamoci/. 

(This is me during the open boat)

Here are some successes obtained by Greenpeace during its 43 years of life: 

- the restoration of Antarctica to the status of best wild continent after an eight-years campaign which consumed half of Greenpeace funds

- the establishment of a whales sanctuary in the Southern Pacific Ocean, protecting the great whales from commercial interests

- the interruption of seal pups killing for commercial gain

- having persuaded the European Community to reduce pollution in the North Sea

- having campaigned to ban the use of CFCs, which destroyed the ozone and having obtained an agreement to remove them from Europe.