Fresh protest images as professionals manicure consciences

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 13

Fresh protest images as professionals manicure consciences

By

KEN COATES

Photograph: DEAN KOZANIC

Vision Qf_a great polar park

Greenpeace has well and truly shed its hippy image and gone up-market. Oiled by SUS4O million in expected .world-wide support this year, the organisation’s ambitious Antarctic project includes tough professionals. They are prepared to face the long dark winter months ahead in a hut at the edge of the icy continent to spearhead what Greenpeace sees as a vital battle to avoid imminent commercial exploitation. It could be a long struggle. The “greens” say if a minerals regime is signed, it would be a setback, but they are committed to preservation. Direct action, such as preventing a vessel leaving port, would be used if, say, oil drilling platforms were to be moved into the Ross Sea. Spokesman Peter Wilkinson says Greenpeace has proved that what stops abuse is public opinion. This is where professionals like the four who will spend the winter on the ice come in. They will do their homework and tell the world what is happening. The four, all from different countries, are aboard a converted Atlantic salvage tug, Greenpeace, bound for the group’s base. That was established last year on Ross Island, only skm from New Zealand’s Scott Base, and 30km from the American McMurdo base. The three men and one woman will replace the first wintering-over team at the aptlynamed World Park base. Greenpeace has a vision of an Antarctica as an international park in which exploitation is banned for all time. It took base leader, Keith Swenson, a 36-year-old American, a year to track down and select his team. He looked for mature, welltravelled people who had lived in other countries and cultures. He wanted well-rounded experience and expertise.

He has them. At Lyttelton aboard the Greenpeace, its decks littered with pistons and engine innards being repaired, the group talks about what motivates them. A West German scientist, Dr Sabine Schmidt, 31, has been in Canada, Iceland, Greenland and Norway. Described by Swenson as tough and bright, she says she is attracted to the Antarctic. Strong, friendly and feminine, she sees working for the protection of the Earth as immensly worth while for a scientist. She likes field work and looks forword to collecting samples of soil

and water, and investigating the lakes on Ross Island. Indicative of the growing support for Greenpeace was the friendly reception she received from scientists at Auckland and Victoria universities with whom she will work. As a geologist, Sabine could possibly be earning good money for an oil company. But she feels more strongly about the environment. At a time when countries are discussing in secret how to control mineral and oil exploitation, she talks of the devastating effect even of a search for oil. “Test drilling could be dangerous. A blow-out that could not be stopped would release oil which currents would carry right around the region, killing plankton, krill and wild life.” Greenpeace fears that large areas of ice could lose their reflective qualities and be melted by the sun. This could affect temperature and weather patterns world wide. Sabine feels keenly environmental pollution. “Trees have been destroyed by acid rain, rivers are polluted and so many nuclear power plants have been constructed in Germany,” she says. “How can I love such a country anymore and call it my mother country?” The group’s role on the ice is vital to Greenpeace’s strategy of arousing the conscience of informed people around the world. It has long understood how the news media works. The base is linked by satellite to major news agencies, Reuters and Associated Press, and Greenpeace offices. So a call from a West German radio station for a comment from Sabine for its breakfast news session is something she expects.

Spending on the Antarctic project for the first three years will be around SUS2 million. This will cover improved computerised communications to be installed by one of the four, a Dutch-born Australian, Sjeord Jongens, 36. He is a veteran of seven visits to the Antarctic and two winters there. An electronics enginer, he is disillusioned by changes in the Australian Antarctic Division, for which he worked. He says there is little concern for the environment. “Science js taking a back seat, and the attitude now is governed by how to make some money from mining, fishing or tourism,” he says. Two private enterprise groups would like to set up an air strip near Davis Station, halfway between Australia and South Africa. He almost shudders at the thought. The danger he sees is that tourists would "trample” on one of the few ice-free sections of the continent at Davis. They would not see, for example, the fossil of a hitherto unknown species of dolphin discovered by a scientist, but not visible to the untrained eye. More countries are trying to grab at what the Antarctic has to offer materially, according to Jongens, who gave up his Government job because he believes preservation of the continent is worth fighting for. Inclusion of Wojtek Moskal, 29, a Polish citizen, makes the group truly international. He tried to form Greenpeace in Poland, and wrote to a friend in the Netherlands inquiring about its Antarctic project. The genial, bearded oceanographer, from the Baltic port of Gdansk, was tracked down at Svalbard, on Spitsbergen, a group of islands to the north of Norway. He spent three years in that region with an expedition from his university and liked it so much he returned to live with

trappers. “I can combine my interest in polar areas with a fight to protect nature,” he says. “Too many people stay at home, but this is a good opportunity for me to do something important, especially as in Poland there is small possibility to do something.” The Pole believes the world takes notice of Greenpeace. He says it is not too late to save the Antarctic from exploitation. The leader, Keith Swenson, is originally from Idaho, where he worked as a river guide and ranger. He is a skilled climber with Himalayan experience. He worked as a mechanic with the Americans at McMurdo four years ago, where he was appalled at the litter and rubbish from “everything that is wrong

with the throw-away society.” Raw sewage went into the bay 100 metres from the water intake. Metal, tyres and batteries were piled on the ice to slide into the ocean at melting time. For Keith, who helped build the Greenpeace base last year, the project represents a challenge to help save something vitally important. Besides, as leader he has a direct say about policy on the ice. “A say in saving a continent is a great motivator, very exciting,” he says. Enthusiasm and local support in Christchurch he describes as overwhelming. With 2.5 million members world-wide, including many professional people like doctors and lawyers, the image of Greenpeace as a bunch of hippies has changed, he says. “We are not there to make enemies, but rather to make converts,” Swenson says of the Greenpeace presence. In contrast to lack of cooperation and an official brushoff from the New Zealand base commander last year, a better reception is expected. The Greenpeace leader talks of close relationships formed with scientists. “We can say things they can’t because of their Government grants,” he says. The Rainbow Warrior affair put Greenpeace on the map. People were astonished that the organisation should be hit by such violence, and while a ship and a life were lost, it resulted in a lot of money. Greenpeace’s skipper, Jim Cottier, 53, holds a British master’s ticket and was born on the Isle of Man. He went to sea at 15, sailed the world in the merchant navy and came to New Zealand in 1967. When his wife died and he was left with two small children, he took a new look at life. “I espoused the hippy cause at the time,” he says. He is now a veteran of protest, having been navigator on the Mururoa protest yacht Tamure and skipper of the Spirit of Peace. Last year, he guided the Greenpeace through thick pack ice near Ross Island for the base building. He bluntly describes the standard of behaviour at the American base as awful. “It’s just like a Texas mining town, without any sign of any one having any special training on how to treat the place.” But he says Americans at the Christchurch Deep Freeze base say they now plan not to leave discarded vehicles and other rubbish on the ice in the future. As to mining and drilling for oil, Jim Cottier says: “Mucking around down there is tempting

fate for the rest of the Earth. It could quickly become a disaster area, and philosophically it would be good for the world to call a halt.”

He expects an 11-day voyage and little pack ice except near Ross Island. He will return to New Zealand early in March. The bearded skipper, who professes a preference for sail, sees a need for increased professionalism, but he complains of a paper war with computer communications and high energy consumption by the ship. He talks of a need to keep in touch with what Greenpeace is all about. “If you work from the inside, there is a risk of becoming converted yourself.” Peter Wilkinson, 41, veteran of a thousand press statements,

popularised the anti-nuclear campaign for the Friends of the Earth in Britain in the 19705. A former Greenpeace director, he says he likes working on ships, and is expedition co-ordi-nator. He sees the planned visits to bases, including the blasting operations of the French, who are building an airstrip at Dumont d’Urville, as “flexing our muscles a little.” Then there will be visits to 10 bases on King George Island. The “greens” see their Antarctic presence as a right, and as Wilkinson says “no tugging of the forelock to Antarctic nations” is required. In the scramble to exploit resources, Greenpeace represents a last desperate chance to preserve the continent and the Earth as we know it.