1996

Continuing on the successful work of the Brent Spar campaign the Arctic Sunrise documented North Sea oil and gas platforms whose owners had publicly stated that they wanted to dump their installations at sea. These include North West Hutton (Amoco) and (Unocal). At the end of 1996 the mv Arctic Sunrise went on a four-week expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula to document the Antarctic's emerging signs of climate change.

1997

January - The m/v Arctic Sunrise headed to Antarctica on a month long expedition to document emerging evidence of human-induced climate change - including reports of increasing instability of the Antarctic ice shelves. The Sunrise set off from a tiny town on the tip of Argentina called Ushuaia, known as 'al fin del mundo' - at the end of the earth -, to investigate the extent of this phenomenom. The ship was the first to circumnavigate James Ross Island. The historic passage would have been impossible until 1995, due to a 200 meter thick ice shelf which connected the island to the Antarctic continent. Travelling south to the Larsen-B ice shelf, Greenpeace found huge cracks in the ice which suggest that this shelf, built up over thousands of years, may also soon collapse.

June - The Arctic Sunrise arrived in Canada for the start of the North American Temperate Rainforest Campaign. She anchored just north of Vancouver island to prepare for an action against clearcutting in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. Six Greenpeace activists followed and boarded a barge loaded with about 400 truckloads of old-growth bound Vancouver. A banner saying "don't buy rainforest destruction" was hung up between two cranes on the barge and the barge was occupied for several days.

July - Various scientific models predict that early evidence of global climate change would be found first in the fragile polar regions. In particular, warmer temperatures might extend the range of temperate plants and insects into ecosystems that were previously adapted to the colder Arctic and Antarctic climates.

In July the Arctic Sunrise departed Vancouver and headed for northern Alaska to find out if these predictions had merit. The ship documented climate change impacts to the Bering Glacier, and then set off for the Kenai Peninsula to document the impacts of warmer temperatures on the boreal forest. There, the crew of the ship met up with scientists and documented the devastion wreaked by the spruce bark beetle. As climate change models predicted, warmer temperatures have led to a dramatic increase in both the range and population of the seemingly innocuous insect. The beetle has munched its way through over 1.2 million hectares of forest.

By the end of August the Arctic Sunrise had completed visited numerous native villages, taking testimonies of observed changes in sea ice, marine mammal migratory patterns, seasonal disruptions and other weather, flora or fauna changes that may be early manifestations of climate change. The ship also tracked down the drilling platform from ARCO in Alaska, USA, trying to prevent the rig from moving and drilling.

1998

May - The beginning of May found the ship freshly out of Misaki Shipyard after extensive repairs. (Misaki is a small tuna fishing port at the mouth of Tokyo Wan). Sea trials took place on the 14th and on the 16th the ship was finally ready to sail for Hong Kong. The welcome in Hong Kong was phenomenal. Over 6500 people visited on the open days.

June - The ship departed from Hong Kong on the first of June, bound for Homer, Alaska for the next installment in the Arctic Climate Campaign. Underway she received an official request from the US Coast Guard to look out for driftnet fishing vessels and as well for abandoned driftnets. Nothing was sighted. Supplies for this summer's Arctic expedition were taken onboard in Homer. From the 22nd onwards Climate Campaign work was carried out in Cordova and Prince William Sound - the latter location is where the Exxon Valdez went aground 9 years ago.

July - Left Cordova on July 1st for St. Lawrence Island, where both villages, Gambell and Savoonga were visited. Two villages in the Bering Strait, Wales and Diomede were next on the list, followed by Deering in Kotzebue Sound and Point Lay, Wainright and Barrow on the coast of the Chukchi Sea. In all villages open days were held, weather permitting. Visitors had to be transported from the beach to the ship's anchorage, sometimes 2 miles away. Public meetings were conducted in all villages. Presentations were given on Greenpeace generally, the climate campaign and the report resulting from last year's village visits: 'Answers from the Ice Edge'. Generally people were quite interested in our activities and asked many questions. New interviews related to climate change were obtained for later use by the campaign.

October - The M/V Arctic Sunrise sailed for Sakhalin Island in the Russian Federation. Once on Sakhalin Island, we had an open day with visitors from local schools and environmental groups touring the ship, speaking to crew members and watching videos of past Arctic and Antarctic campaigns. After several days transit we arrived at the Molikpaq oil platform and immediately began an action which resulted in the ship being fined on return to Korsakov. The Arctic Sunrise then went on its way to New Zealand to prepare for the anti-whaling campaign in December.

November - The Arctic Sunrise arrived in Pohnpei in early November en route from Korsakov to Auckland. We called in to pay our respects to Hayhow, a Greenpeace colleague and sailor who passed away earlier this year. Having departed Phonpei we received news 2 days prior to arrival in Auckland that a fire had broken out on the whaling vessel Nisshin-maru. We immediately changed course and headed for the crippled ship in order to offer our assistance. The crew of the Arctic Sunrise were relieved to learn that no one onboard the whaling factory ship was injured.

1999

February - The Sunrise left Auckland, New Zealand to search for pirate vessels illegally catching Patagonian Toothfish in the Southern Ocean. Ship scientists conduct research to document the relationship between overfishing and sea bird populations. In March the crew of the Sunrise discovered an unmarked vessel illegally taking toothfish near the French territory, Kerguelen Island. The Sunrise pursued the pirate vessel, later identified as the Belize-flagged "Salvora", over 3,000 kilometers to the port of Mauritius. At Mauritius, authorities inspect the Salvora and find 170 tonnes of toothfish and that the ship's log books have been falsified. The Salvora is refused entry.

June/July - The Sunrise returned to Arctic ice edge to reveal more evidence that climate change is occuring and having a negative impact on the widlife and ecology of the region.

December - The crew of the M/V Arctic Sunrise began an intensive 6 week campaign against illegal Japanese whaling in the internationally-recognized Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. In response, the Japanese factory ship Nisshin maru rammed the Greenpeace vessel. International condemnation of Japan's continued whaling in the Southern grew throughout December and early 2000.