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Early Monday morning I arrived at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting not as a human but as "SheSeeMe" the bigeye tuna. I passed out leaflets that laid out clear solutions to the increasing problem of overfishing in the Pacific and made it clear to the Commission that the world was watching. Within a matter of minutes nearly every one of the 360 or so delegates was holding one of these little pieces of wisdom. Even the Governor of Guam took one and patted me on the fin, thanking me. Being a fish out of water actually turned out to be fun and with my task complete I transformed back into human form and returned to the meeting to observe the proceedings along with the rest of the Greenpeace delegation.

The opening kicked off with a warm welcome from the Governor of Guam who noted the importance of fisheries to Guam and and to Pacific identities. He also reminded everyone in the room that "the world was watching". The Chairman of the Commission then gave a speech where he challenged the countries represented here to take the action and responsibility required to protect and maintain the tuna stocks. His compelling words left a lump in my throat as we moved into the official proceedings. I glanced around the room and felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people here from across the world. There are Pacific nations and also nations that have or want to have fishing fleets here.

Not too long ago I remember reading that fish stocks in the Pacific were relatively healthy and that it was the only region in the world where tuna was not being overfished. But a lot has changed in just a few years and scientists are now saying that Pacific tuna stocks are severely threatened from overfishing and that the situation is critical. The Pacific countries are now faced with a very difficult challenge and the fate of many economies is at stake.

I am in Guam right now at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting where more than 20 nations will be negotiating agreements on the region's fisheries, which mainly consist of 4 tuna species (yellow fin, big-eye, skip jack and albacore). The greatest concern is over the decline in yellow fin and big eye stocks which are the tunas that are sold to the sushi and sashimi markets.

Seems like it went pretty well with 20,000 bloggers all posting green things! I was particularly interested in the blogs coming out of Africa and the favorites picked here and of course - my friend Brian was blogging his heart out too - this time for Britney Spears no less!

But I was very disappointed to see that only 2 people blogged about the Great Whale Trail! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!??? Grumble... it's the best thing EVER! Thanks to this one Dutch blogger and one Chinese (?? or is it Japanese??) blogger for saving me from a complete tantrum that I would have had - had nobody blogged about the GWT!

I have been working on a very exciting project for Greenpeace for the past 6 months.

Unlike the thousands of humpback whales in the North Atlantic - many of which migrate past Bermuda where I live - the humpbacks from the South Pacific now risk being harpooned by the Japanese whaling fleet this year in the Southern Ocean. The small populations of humpbacks that breed in the waters surrounding several South Pacific islands are also a lot less lucky than their Atlantic relatives since they have hardly recovered at all from commercial whaling.

Greenpeace is now satellite tracking humpback whales from small endangered populations in the South Pacific to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean in order to prove that the whaling fleet is a serious threat to these whales. These populations are treasured by Pacific islanders and provide a great source of income for the Pacific whale watching industry. In Tonga for example one humpback whale is estimated to provide over $1 million dollars to the economy through whale watching.

The Great Whale Trail was created by a team of Greenpeace folks and whale scientists that I have coordinated since the beginning and I am so proud this week to see it being beamed around the world! Non lethal research including satellite tagging provides scientists with everything they need to know about the whales - proving that whales don't need to die for research!

You can now follow the Great Whale Trail along with me and find out how you can help make the oceans a safer place for whales and other marine life!

- Sing up to receive regular updates
- Check out the interactive Google map showing the whales' migrations
- Name a whale!
- Support an end to whaling and a global network of marine reserves!

You can watch the first episode of Great Whale Trail TV
- and meet some of the team that I have been working with all this time. They are totally cool!

I hope you will join me on the Great Whale Trail!

Thanks!
Lisa

Longer version here

If you like this be sure to digg it!

My mate Dave is over in Anchorage blogging at the IWC - check out his blog

Join the Big Blue March!

Here's a post I wrote for Greenpeace - but wanted to copy it here since I was the person working on this and am VERY proud of it too!

Earlier this year an issue was raised over on the GreenpeaceOcean Defenders Blog concerning the sale of Shark Fin Soup on Amazon.com. Greenpeace has since contacted Amazon and requested that they remove all products containing shark fins from their website.

It is with great pleasure that we can now tell you that Amazon has taken all of these products off their website! This is a great response from Amazon and we'd like to commend them on taking such a bold step.

The shark finning industry kills up to 73 million sharks per year and continues to threaten the survival of these cartilagenous critters. Additionally It has recently become evident that the disappearance of sharks has detrimental effects to broader marine ecosystems. We hope that other companies will follow Amazon's lead and stop selling Shark Fin Soup.

I've just spent the last two days at Westminster but strangely it feels like I have been there for weeks. On Tuesday I got up at 5:30am and headed out from Canary Wharf (where the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is based) into the heart of London. I joined a bunch of Greenpeace volunteers from local groups across the city and we waited to hand out leaflets to MPs coming in and out of Parliament.

The MPs started to arrive, and quite a few stopped to talk when I asked how they felt about Trident replacement. There was a mix of opinions; some were entirely in support of our campaign against new nuclear weapons, others were ambivalent and some were sadly very supportive of having weapons that can wipe out millions of men, women and children. Nevertheless, whatever their opinions, most of them took leaflets as they went on their way and, at the end of the day, we had given out over 3,000 leaflets to people coming in and out of parliament buildings.

The Ministry of Defence in the UK has seized the Arctic Sunrise and all the crew have been arrested. Find out more here: