THE FROZEN WALTZ

Ever had that dream where your house moved while you were sleeping in your bed? Where you wake up and walk out the door to find that your house has pulled up its roots and drifted down the valley to where the river meets the sea?

For the past three nights, the Arctic Sunrise has been moored to the same ice floe in the Arctic Ocean. On the first day we got here, BBC reported that new satellite data shows that the sea ice is melting so fast this summer that both the Northeast and Northwest passages now are open. This summer’s sea ice minimum is on a trajectory to run a close second to the 2007 record for the smallest area of ice cover since the satellite era began in 1979.

Each ice floe melts from the bottom and the top at the same time. Anything you dig into the ice will be closer to the surface the next day, so every morning the metal stakes the crew has drilled into the ice to keep the ship moored have to be drilled further in. From day to day, you can see our floe is melting, small cracks developing and other floes drifting into us, only to drift away again. When you look at the positioning track, you’ll find that we are drifting as well. The general direction is northeast, but the ship and the floe doesn’t move on a straight line. It looks like we are doing the slowest waltz in history, or, at least, since the satellite era began in 1979.

The Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen would recognize this dance. Nansen famously tried to reach the North Pole by freezing his ship (Fram) into the ice in the fall of 1894, hoping that the winter drift would take him close enough to the pole to make it there on skis. His ship moved in circles as well, but ended up nowhere near where they wanted to be. Still, Nansen took his best man man and made for the pole. Their attempt failed badly, and the 16-month survival epic that followed is one of the classics stories from that age in the history of polar exploration. While Nansen tried to make the drift of the sea ice work to his advantage, the polar explorers of our age have grasped the opportunities the melting of the sea ice presents. In 2010, two independent boats sailed through both the Northwest and the Northeast passages in one summer, a feat that had never been accomplished before.

The fluidity of the polar ice cap – it comes and goes, it drifts and spins – makes it harder to convince people, governments and industry that this fragile environment needs protection. It easier to get people on board with protecting a certain piece of land, than a ever-changing white maze. The oil and shipping industries are closely monitoring the sea ice extent. While still some decades in the future, we could some day see an industralization of the Arctic.

Last fall, I talked to Børge Ousland, who was the captain on one of the two boats who sailed all around the north pole. He has been to the North Pole a dozen times. He said he had never seen as little wildlife as that summer. Up here, climate change is happening so fast that no one knows the lasting impact on biodiversity.

We haven’t seen much wildlife so far, but it never get's too lonely, as the ice floe insists on dancing all night through. Only problem is the crew likes classic rock, but the ice does the waltz no matter what music we play in the hold.

+ More

Marine Reserve Success Story: Cabo Pulmo, México

Greenpeace México oceans campaigner Alejandro Olivera onboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise during last year's expedition to the Arctic.

In the Greenpeace oceans campaign, we talk a lot about marine reserves, the wildlife parks at sea that can help restore fish populations, improve our oceans' resilience to threats like climate change and ensure living oceans for the future. It's something we've been working on for years, including here in México. I wanted to share an example of how marine reserves can help grow fish populations and maintain local economies, but an example that will also illustrate how we must keep working to defend our oceans.

Twenty years ago, fishermen near Cabo Pulmo (the northernmost and one of the most important coral reef in the East Pacific) a few horus from Los Cabos noticed that they had to go further from the coast to catch fish and that yearly catches- and profits- were declining, so they decided to trade in their fishing nets for scuba diving gear. The local communities supported the shift from fishing to eco-tourism and the area became the best-enforced no-take (meaning fish aren’t removed from a designated area of waters) areas in the the Gulf of California, nicknamed the World’s Aquarium by Jacques Cousteau because of its unique range of marine biodiversity. (You may remember Greenpeace’s 2006 ship expedition to the Gulf of California.) The people of Cabo Pulmo still believe that showing a fish to a tourist is more profitable than fishing it out of the water.

Once the Cabo Pulmo reef area was declared off-limits to fishing, an amazing recovery began. Marine life around the reef began to flourish and the area was designated a National Park (marine reserve) by the Mexican government, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site under UNESCO and named a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar convention. Mexican scientists recently released the results of a research project, showing that the increase in fish populations in Cabo Pulmo in the last decade is the largest increase ever measured in a marine reserve! This increase is likely due to a combination of social (strong community support for the protection of these waters and effective enforcement) and ecological factors. In a period of ten years fish “biomass” increased 463%.

What’s even more incredible is that you can see the results of this change in Cabo Pulmo first-hand. I´ve dived in the Caribbean, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the East Pacific, and Cabo Pulmo is the most amazing diving location I’ve experienced. I´ve never seen so many large groupers on a dive, let alone all swimming together! During my last dive in Cabo Pulmo, I suddenly felt a cloud above me and when I looked up a huge school of jacks began to surround me, and we had to dive through them to reach the water’s surface. It is strange that the fish in Cabo Pulmo are so used to the presence of divers that you can get very close to them, as if they were domesticated. It was marvelous!

Unfortunately, this underwater paradise that has recovered and is now thriving is now under threat. Earlier this year, the Mexican government approved a huge coastal development project next to Cabo Pulmo marine reserve named Cabo Cortes. A Spanish development company is hoping to build a new city in this semi desert area that will have more than 27 thousand rooms, 2 golf courses and a marina that can hold 490 yachts, a resort nearly at the scale of Cancún.

Greenpeace Spain and Greenpeace Mexico have been campaigning to protect this gem in the World’s Aquarium. So far, construction of the Cabo Cortes project has not started and we will not let it happen, as the Cabo Pulmo marine reserve has brought significant economic benefits to the region. Community-managed marine reserves are a real solution and a better alternative to unsustainable coastal development, which could lead to fisheries collapse in the Gulf of California and beyond.

If we want ample fish and healthy oceans tomorrow, we need more marine reserves like the one in Cabo Pulmo today. Greenpeace is campaigning globally to change fishing practices and create a global network of marine reserves covering 40% of the world's oceans. These are necessary steps to restore our oceans - which provide food and jobs for millions - to health as the overfishing crisis continues.

+ More

Fukushima City kids should not have to choose between radiation and education

The children of Fukushima City are due to return to their schools this week despite the continued contamination of school buildings by radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Just over a week ago, our radiation experts found dose rates exceeding international safety standards at several schools, as well as many public areas in Fukushima City; this is why we are calling on Japan’s incoming Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, to keep the area’s schools closed until they are properly decontaminated. No parent should have to choose between radiation exposure and education for their child – yet this is the decision facing thousands of parents.

The Greenpeace radiation monitoring team surveyed a high school, preschool, and childcare centre, along with several public areas in Fukushima City, and discovered high radiation rates at one school where they authorities had already carried out decontamination work.

They also found radiation at rates that are dangerous for children at a park in central Fukushima City, and in other public areas.

While average dose rates remain above the international 1mSv/y maximum allowed in many places – including areas already decontaminated by the authorities - lower levels of radiation were recorded in locations where local communities taken the initiative to carry out their own clean up activities.

A notable decrease in radiation was found at a preschool in Fukushima City following decontamination efforts by community groups and NGOs, however, while this is positive news for the children, as the surrounding area has not been cleaned, the children remain at risk when outside the school, and the school itself is at constant risk of being re-contaminated.

What this highlights is not only that official clean-up efforts to date have not been enough to protect the health of children, but that the authorities are creating more work by conducting selective decontamination, and putting the people of Fukushima at greater risk by forcing them to take matters into their own hands.

Last week, the Japanese government announced a new clean up plan for the greater Fukushima area – but like many of its initiatives so far, this is too little and too late. Prime Minister Noda must delay the opening of schools, immediately relocate people who are in high-risk areas, and mobilise the huge workforce needed to get radiation dose rates as far below safety limits as possible.

This is the challenge for incoming Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. He must move quickly to secure people’s health, homes and livelihoods. Then he must secure his country’s future by abandoning nuclear technology, and moving towards a future powered by renewable energy. Japan’s parliament made the first move on this on Friday, but voting in a crucial and landmark renewable energy bill. This bill gives Mr Noda the chance to move Japan away from the risky and expensive nuclear path, to protect Japan’s economy and the future for its people, and show the world what a true energy revolution looks like.