Wellington, September 17: A dozen Greenpeace activists lashed themselves on Wednesday to a cargo ship in New Zealand to protest its shipment of animal feed produced at palm plantations that they blame for massive deforestation.
The environmental advocacy group claims millions of hectares of rain forest are being cut down to make way for the plantations, destroying animal habitats and seriously impacting the climate.
The protesters boarded the Hong Kong-registered East Ambition from a motorised dinghy while the ship was anchored off the Port of Tauranga, chaining themselves to cargo cranes in an attempt to stop the cargo of palm kernel from reaching shore.
Police later boarded the ship and arrested two protesters.
The activists say the palm kernel animal feed is from Indonesia and is headed for New Zealand dairy farms. The country’s dairy industry imported about 1.1 million metric tons of the feed in 2008.
Greenpeace campaigner Simon Boxer called on Prime Minister John Key to halt imports of the product and address intensive dairy farming in New Zealand. After tourism, the dairy industry is New Zealand’s second-biggest foreign currency earner, and dairy exports represent 24% of all New Zealand’s export income.
‘Fonterra Climate Crime’
“We have no hope of slowing climate change if we continue to raze and burn the world’s remaining rain forests,” Boxer said.
Activist Jo McVeagh accused Key and Fonterra, the country’s biggest dairy co-operative, of contributing to rain forest destruction. Protesters who boarded the ship held up a banner that read “Fonterra Climate Crime”.
“Fonterra and John Key have taken no steps to stop this climate crime, which is why we’re taking action,” she said in a statement.
John Lea, chief executive of Fonterra’s rural merchandising company RD1, said the East Ambition was not carrying a palm kernel feed shipment for the co-operative. He added that a recent World Bank audit found that RD1’s feed supplier was managing its operations according to World Bank principles.
“So taking a Fonterra banner out and chaining themselves to this ship is nothing more than a dangerous publicity stunt that puts people’s lives at risk,” Lea said.
Key said he would not act to ban palm kernel-based imports.
“It’s 1% of New Zealand (animal) feed, it’s a waste product and in my opinion it’s not leading to deforestation,” he told reporters. “On that basis I have no intention of intervening.”
—-Agencies