The Esperanza is winding up its tour of the Pacific after visiting its last destination – Vanuatu. The last Greenpeace ship to visit the country was the first Rainbow Warrior in the mid-80s.
Here’s an update from Emily, aboard the Esperanza.
The Pacific Voices ship tour is nearly over – we have finished our last stop in the Pacific in Vanuatu, and are now the ship and the campaign team are heading towards the Pacific Island Forum Meeting in Cairns, Australia.
Last Friday, we arrived in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, to yet another beautiful welcome ceremony organised by the local NGOs and the Government Climate Change team. Although the Prime Minister was unable to attend due to being out of town, his representative read a welcome speech on his behalf. It was one of the strongest political statements on climate change we have heard in the tour. Vanuatu was recently named in a UN report as being one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and are getting
We also held a number of functions on board the ship. At one of these, the head of the National Advisory Council on Climate Change (NACCC), Jothan Napat, gave a stirring speech about Vanuatu’s commitment to standing strong on climate change. Jothan was interviewed by CNN last year after a community had to be relocated due to climate impacts in the north of Vanuatu. When asked what his message was to the US Pesident Obama, he responded: “You burn, We die.”
On the Saturday, we held open days on board and had almost 1000 locals come to hear about the campaign and see the ship. This is the first time a Greenpeace ship has visited Vanuatu since the mid- 80’s when the first Rainbow Warrior stopped here during the campaigns against French and American nuclear testing. So, it was very popular, and people were very interested in the organisation and how they could get involved. On the Monday we had around 500 high school kids visiting.
For our final two days, we headed up to the north of the main island to the small islands of Nguna and Pelle, where there is an
environmentally active community who have started their own marine protected area and are developing climate change adaptation projects, such as building sea walls to protect their eroding coastline.
So now the ship heads off to Australia to continue to support Pacific activists and political leaders to push the issue of climate change and keep the pressure on the Australian and New Zealand governments at the Pacific Island Forum starting on 4 August.
