Greenpeace Ship Arrives in Auckland Before Whaling Campaign

Auckland, 8 January 2007-- Greenpeace ship The Esperanza will arrive in Auckland tomorrow morning, to prepare for the organisation's campaign against the Japanese Government's whaling programme in the Antarctic's Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The 72.3m Esperanza is Greenpeace's newest ship and it will be the first time she has visited New Zealand. She and her crew will be greeted with a Powhiri at Princes Wharf around 11 a.m.

The Esperanza will be in New Zealand for two weeks, when she leaves for the Antarctic.

She will be open for public visits for the next two weekends – on 13/14 and 20/21 January from 10 am to 4 pm.

"We welcome the Esperanza to New Zealand. This voyage will be the last journey in her year-long global "Defending our Oceans" campaign to highlight threats to the oceans," said Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid.

"Last whaling season the Greenpeace crew stopped many whales from being killed in the Antarctic. This year they will be carrying out activities designed by supporters who have posted their ideas on http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/whales ," she said.

During her global expedition, the Esperanza has been the home, office and workshop for the crew in some of the most remote regions of the world. She has confronted pirate fishers off the coast of West Africa, promoted marine reserves and threats to the coastal marine systems in the Atlantic, the Red Sea and the coastlines of India, and highlighted the overfishing of tuna in both the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

The crew are from around 19 different countries, but up to 40 people can be on board including researchers, campaigners and scientists.

The Esperanza has been fitted with the latest in internet technology, with broadband on the ship 24 hours a day, in order to communicate with the world what she is up to, at any time of the day or night.

Greenpeace bought the ship in 2000 and she was re-named Esperanza (Spanish for "hope") through a competition for Greenpeace's hundreds of thousands of cyberactivists around the world.

ENDS

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