I started my education three years as a fitter in a shipyard in Flensburg. It was very interesting to work on big ships, so I decided to study ship engineering, and sailed two years as assistant engineer. Then I sailed as engineer on commercial ships. After a while it became really boring and I thought maybe I could do something else. So I started working for a big Finnish marine engine company as service engineer and supervisor. The money was good, the job was interesting and I learned a lot, but the "human element" was horrible.

Then I met the Green Messiah and he convinced me.

My name is Bill, and I'm a 37-year-old Australian. I work as the ship's electrician and an activist.

Why I joined the organisation is because I consider myself to be (relatively) intelligent, and for a long time I have been concerned with the way we, as apparently the most advanced form of life on the planet, are continually destroying the very environment that supports us.

I only recently began working for Greenpeace. Previously, I have worked in the forestry industry and seen companies profit from the exploitation of non-industrialized countries. I have also worked on fishing ships and seen the rape of the seas for seafood exports, and how the industry is driven to frenzy by overseas tastes for the biggest or the rare. I have even worked in the mining industry where I saw the pollution of large tracts of dessert by companies that consider it worthless wasteland.

Man is destroying the air he breathes, the only planet he has, and doesn't seem to be able to admit that he is his own downfall.

As I said I'm 37 - and for years now I have been sitting in my living room complaining about these things, but believing that I could not do a thing to change them. Well, I was wrong.

There are ways people can make that difference, and my way was to join Greenpeace. It's not for everyone, but I took a large pay cut and I now surround myself with like-minded people.

Life on board is quite different to that of life on land. For one, the ship is always moving, and your bed is not always flat. Then also, the people you talk with one day will be the same people you talk with the next. The view is constantly changing, and the sunsets can take your breath away. I get to see the world for all it's natural wonder, but also for all its man made disgusts.

On the ship, we constantly train for safety with the boats and climbing. Also, we are constantly practising how to be non-violent. This is important as violence solves nothing, but just creates a new problem.

Most importantly, I can sit down at the end of the day and feel that I'm doing something positive to give to the next generation - not only leaving mistakes for them to clean up.

I put in at least six days a week - waking at 7:00am to make my breakfast and go to work. Lunch is provided, and we all enjoy it together. After lunch, back to work for the afternoon until dinner is served at 6:00pm. Again we all eat together. Then it's time for a beer or read or just relax.

It's an interesting life, and at the end of the day I'm doing something not just sitting on my ass hoping someone else will save it.

I'm from West Yorkshire in the UK. I've been involved with Greenpeace since 1990. I was an engineer in the Navy, and I always followed Greenpeace's activities. I rang them up one day and a week later I was in the Med, in a much smaller ship but with the same amount of people and a lot less budget. It was quite hectic, one campaign straight after another as it is always in the Med because there are so many offices within a relatively small space, going from Spain to France to Italy to Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, the ship is usually quite busy.

We did a lot of blocking pipes, it was not very nice, you got dirty, you got arrested but that was what it was all about to actually make the point. I was always used to quite hard actions, everybody always used to get arrested, the ship used to get arrested half of the time, but that was having its effect, sometimes I wonder if softer actions in this
day and age actually have an effect. The idea of Greenpeace is actually to bear witness, the Quaker philosophy of bearing witness, by publicity you bring something out in the open which otherwise would remain hidden. In the earlier days it was much easier, you had nothing to lose except maybe one ship.

Now the whole thing with the media has changed. It seems that the emphasis in the 90s was environmental, saving the planet, now because of the events of September 11 the media has changed, the media is obsessed with terrorists, and they are very fickle -- they just follow whatever is the latest fad. It seems that environmental work has gone out of fashion. How long that will last, I don't know.

As a result of Sept 11 civil rights have been seriously eroded. It's only a matter of time before activists will be seen as terrorists, especially in America and in England where nowadays anyone can be banged up for a certain time without trial, and no rights whatsoever. The world has changed quite dramatically; human rights and democracy have actually taken a step backwards.

Has the Med improved since 1990? On the Sirius on the 90s we couldn't get rid of our waste oil, there was no port that would take it and it didn't take much to realise what the
commercial ships were doing: it all went straight out into the Med. As a result of different campaigns of Greenpeace, there are now facilities in Barcelona, and in a few other countries that actually take waste oil, it can be mixed with an additive and used
as fuel, instead of pumping it over the side, so in some ways it got better.

Other things, for example the river in Izmir, Turkey… we did a big action, blockaded it completely because they call it a river but actually it is a big stream of effluent which sort of washes down into the Med, and I believe it is still doing the same and the Med, if you consider it only has a change of water really once every fifty years, it cannot sort of dilute its pollution the same as the world's oceans can, and so many countries discharge their effluents and toxics into the Med. So it's hard to say whether it became better or worse in the Med.

I'm Isabelle. I was born in south France, at Toulon, near Marseille. My father was in the Navy. So, I got to travel a lot in French speaking countries.

I did technical studies in agronomy and environmental science, specialising in forest management. At end of my studies, I didn't find work in my specialisation, and I was doing a lot of agricultural and commercial work.

My passion is mountain sports such as climbing, mountain biking, hiking… Now, I want to work in an association or ONG like Greenpeace, I will study and specialize in this.

In Greenpeace, I'm a forest spokesperson, an activist and a climber. I started to work, after a short time, in the local group of Montpellier in toxic issues. Now, I joined the Esperanza for the Med tour to work as deckhand for three months. I help with all manoeuvres and maintenance tasks, I enjoy the ship life, i'm making a lot of watches, cleaning and other funny things. This trip has given me the opportunity to meet other passionate people and to learn more about toxic issues in other countries.

I'm Mariek I'm a deckhand, and i help Mir a bit with the web page. Excellent to be here, quite necessary as well. It's a lazy waste management -if existing at all- in the Mediterranean; I'm surprised everyday how badly organised the recycling is. On the ship we separate all the garbage and in port often we can't get rid of it because it all goes to landfill. And these are not the poorest countries which we're visiting. Recycling just doesn't live here and pushing this idea is already a good enough reason to be here.

Results are often small, mostly it's trying to change a point of view, really starting from scratch. Exception of the rule? An action against a nickel factory, in Greece, we started at six, dropped climbers off on the side, they went up the cranes to stop the loading of a barge with contaminated sludge, which they empty here in the Med. At six in the evening we got an agreement from the company to stop the dumping. It was really incredible, we thought we were gonna hang out there for four days, but this was hit and go, rare and very satisfying.

For twenty years I had the idea that I should do something for the environment, but did not do much of anything. Then one day I saw Greenpeace on the television. I called them up and asked how to help.

I spent four years as a volunteer on the Greenpeace Argentina office, working on the toxics campaign. I had worked for ten years as a cook in the Argentinean merchant navy.

Now I cook on Greenpeace ships, and I'm improving my English too, because it's the common language on the ships. Now I feel more committed with the environment. I love this planet too much to let them keep destroying it.

My job on board is to make a little window so that other people can see what we're up to on this ship. Working with the Internet is a bit of an ambiguous position: as environmentalists we try to counter the dangers of industrial society, but we still use its technology for our work -- cellphones, computers and diesel engines. It is only a tiny minority of people in the planet that can actually surf the web, but it is still an essential tool for getting the word out.

There's plenty questions and not too many answers, which makes our work very interesting. What alternatives do we propose to the way things are being done, beyond just saying stop this, no more that? Trying to turn powerful multinationals into well-behaved giants, for example, is not a realistic long-term strategy. So, how do we get rid of them, and how will the world be after capitalism? How do we organise ourselves witthout copying the undemocratic and hierarchical models of corporations?

Answering these questions is not easy, but well worth a try.

My first job for Greenpeace was in 1985 right after the Rainbow Warrior was bombed. I worked as a volunteer in the salvage operations. It was a very emotional time. Then in March 1996 I joined the MV Greenpeace as second engineer. I did all but one of the Antarctic campaigns on that ship as well as on the Gondwana. I left Greenpeace in 1991 and went back to work on commercial ships.

I came back to Greenpeace in October this year. It's my time again -I have six grandchildren and I want them to breathe clean air and drink clean water. I'm doing this for them.

I worked on a shipyard for nine years, where I came across the Esperanza while working on its conversion. What I love about Greenpeace is that everybody is here with the same aim, it’s a
great motivation and all I can say is: follow your heart

Why i am here? Like everyone else, to make a change. Our planet, as we all know, is endangered by all sorts of pollution and other issues like war. I'm here to represent a lot of people out there that are donating money to support us, to help to make a change, to make a difference for what they believe in. I'm here to make sure that that money is being worthwhile, that every penny they put in is being used for a good cause. I'm here to make sure newborn babies come into a better world: we have the responsibility to leave them a better world instead of a worse one.

We are doing so by being motivated, by being committed towards what we believe in, since what we believe in is also what they believe in. And so we make a difference and we make a change so that this planet will be a more enjoyable, cleaner place for everyone to live.

I'm from the Cook Islands, that's in the South Pacific, where there's not that many environmental problems. But it's quite sad to see, especially with climate change, that they are the victims of other countries like Europe, all these Pacific islands are being affected and I think it's quite sad to see that. So on their behalf I'm here to do something about it, or at least try to stop further pollution.

On the Esperanza, I am the Navigation Officer. As such I am responsible for keeping our navigational charts and publications up to date. When underway I have the 00:00 to 04:00 and 12:00 to 16:00 watches. It doesn't allow for a normal sleeping patern but because we are in port quite a bit I am still able to have some semblance of a normal life.

At home, on the West Coast of Canada, I am an environmental activist and marine consultant.

Most of the campaign work I have been active in has been in saving the Great Bear Rainforest. The group I work closest with is the Forest Action Network, www.fanweb.org

Some actions on local issues have included joint efforts between various groups (including Greenpeace) and as a result the environmental movement on the West Coast has developed into a loose network of activists. This has provided me the opportunity to learn various tactics of different groups from Civil Disobedience to Public Education to Political Lobbying et cetera.

The planet has many foes on many fronts aiming to profit from its destruction. I believe that all efforts on all levels to thwart these short-sighted profiteers in a united movement can only help to bring about the positive change required to save our planet. Therefore I appreciate the chance to work with small grass-roots organizations and also the opportunity to work internationally with groups such as Greenpeace. We are all necessary steps in the struggle for environmental sustainability.

Hi, my name is Waldemar, from Corrientes, a city in the North East of Argentina. I'm the Chief Mate on board. I have been working on Greenpeace's ships since 2000 when I joined the MV Arctic Sunrise to go to the Arctic. I hope our presence can make every Mediterranean aware that there are certain companies polluting their precious, amazing sea. Don't let them poison the environment.