Dialogue

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There are 35 whaling ships in the annual hunts, providing jobs on ships and on the land, for only 0.2% of fishermen's total income. We need to be able to show that abandoning factory fishing is more important. They could have a larger cod quota if they were able to stop the factory fishing fleet.

It's really interesting actually because the only ones who don't agree with us in the end are the ones working on factory fishing trawlers, and they are few.

Norway has been under immense pressure from different countries over whaling, but when a small nation is under great pressure, the people tend to get together and stand up against the perceived enemy. You have to be quite strong to cope with the situation, and not easily intimidated. But it's very rewarding.

Why do I do it? Because I believe it's the right thing to do, both the way of working in the communities and the campaign itself, which is very sound. It takes time but it has effect, and I hope that finally we'll persuade the government and the whaling communities to change."

Frode Pleym's updates from onboard the Greenpeace ship MV Stockholm:

19 May: Irrationality increases. The hooligans of Hammerfest just visited us, made threats and showed an amazing amount of ugly words. They calmed down after a while.

23 May: We are approached by a very angry man who screamed that he would sink our boat in the evening. After one hour he realised that we had arguments, apologised and left.

24 May: One starts to get quite tired of hearing "Go to hell". It takes a lot to always reply "Have a nice day".

Frode's experiences on the 2000 tour have strengthened his belief that direct community work by Greenpeace is vital to halt Norwegian whaling. The need has become more urgent: in 2001 Norway announced plans to re-start commercial exports of whale meat.

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