For the love of Mother Earth

On Dec. 10, 1997, Julia "Butterfly" Hill set up a house in a 600-year-old tree in a forest in California. She wanted to protect the tree from butchers. She knew that tree butchers would have to kill her first before they could cut the tree down. Julia created worldwide attention. Celebrities visited her. Politicians became interested in her wild but meaningful stunt. The media set up camp near the tree. But after 738 days, Julia went down and the tree was not spared by the murderous chainsaw of the loggers. But that was not the last act of non-violent protest from Julia. Together with Daryl Hannah and Joan Baez, Julia again set up a house in a walnut tree in Los Angeles. They were protesting a land owner’s plan to develop the area because they said working immigrants were tending crops there.

Julia has not perhaps heard of Samar and its forests yet. Samar has a great, lush forest. In fact it is now a conserved area. But before we learned about conserving the forests, we knew that logging was being done in Samar. But as little kids, we were not aware of such things as illegal logging. Yes, we saw logs as big as culverts floating in Taft River which goes all the way down to Mutyong River and then runs through the Pacific Ocean. And every afternoon, we saw trucks carrying huge lumbers being ferried out from the forests. "Di ba ang Samar gubat?" people in Manila would often ask. And I would say yes, it is. But in Samar, you will find pitcher plants which were in abundance then and are now endangered species; uwak and banog – big birds that used to prey unsuspecting chicken, orchids of various kinds which you will not find in most orchidariums; pine trees, narra, lawaan, almaciga, mahogany, kamagong, among others. In Samar, there also existed the biggest supplier of copper mines in Asia, the Bagacay Mines owned by Don Jesus Cabarrus. It shut down in the late ’70s.

That was Samar of my childhood. And as young kids, we were not aware that forests could be raped. We saw the beauty of the forests, the rivers, the plants and trees around but we didn’t know that these beautiful resources would be depleted in time. There was an abundance of these things. And more than 30 years later, Samar would be placed in the conserved area list.

Conserving and preserving the forests is one of the centerpieces of Greenpeace International, a non-profit organization that makes its priority global environmental campaigns. Greenpeace is found in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. As an organization Greenpeace is committed to stop climate change, protect ancient forests, save the oceans, stop whaling, say no to genetic engineering, stop the nuclear threat, eliminate toxic chemicals, encourage sustainable trade.

Its founders and members include: Paul Cote, a law student at the University of British Columbia; Jim Bohlen, a former deep-sea diver and radar operator in the US Navy, Irving Stowe, a Quaker and Yale-educated lawyer; Patrick Moore, ecology student at the University of British Columbia and Bill Darnell, a social worker.

Greenpeace’s initial voyage happened in 1971, when a small team of activists set sail from Vancouver, Canada, in an old fishing boat called Phyllis Cormack into Amchitka, in the Alleutian Islands of Alaska where the US government was conducting underground nuclear tests. They wanted to bear witness to the underground testing. However, the group was intercepted before they could even reach their destination. The US detonated the bomb and Greenpeace got the media attention. Amchitka, which is home for 3,000 endangered sea otters, bald eagles, peregrine falcons and other wildlife, was declared a bird sanctuary.

Thirty-five years after Greenpeace’s first voyage, it would leave an indelible mark in the preservation of world environment. Aside from the volunteers and its resolve to save Mother Earth and its environs, one of the most striking features of the organization is its ships. From the old fishing boat Phyllis Cormack, Greenpeace has a fleet of ships which is at the forefront of all Greenpeace campaigns. These ships include inflatables, which Greenpeace has already been using for its campaigns more than 25 years ago. Greenpeace was inspired to use them after an experience that happened in 1972 when while in a campaign against French nuclear testing in Mururoa Islands, French commandos boarded Greenpeace’s yatch called Vega and beat its skipper David McTaggart. Greenpeace found the inflatable effective because as they say, if they were effective to the French commandos, they would surely be effective on Greenpeace volunteeers. The Rainbow Warrior is the most famous Greenpeace ship. The original ship sunk in 1985 but was rebuilt. Its name was inspired from an old North American Indian prophecy which foretells a time when human greed will make the Earth sick, and a mythical band of warriors will descend from a rainbow to save it. The Dalai Lama and the rock band U2 have been visitors to the Rainbow Warrior. The Argus is Greenpeace’s smallest motor-ship. It mostly works in the Rotterdam (The Netherlands) harbor or along the North sea coast.

In contrast to Argus which is Greenpeace’s smallest ship, is Esperanza, the latest and largest vessel in the Greenpeace fleet. Another Greenpeace ship is The Arctic Sunrise which is used on its "icy campaigns." And lastly, there’s the Greenpeace balloon which can only accommodate the pilot and two passengers.

If you want to join Greenpeace, visit its headquarters at 24 K-J St. cor. K-7 St., East Kamias, 1102 Quezon City or call 434-7034 or e-mail mailto:[email protected].

It’s time to save Mother Earth!