March 25, 2013, 11:05 p.m.
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
FLOATING DEFIANCE: Images of the Rainbow Warrior III in Newcastle Harbour. Pictures by Ryan Osland
GREENPEACE flagship the Rainbow Warrior sailed peacefully into Newcastle Harbour today, with those on board promising no repeat of the port blockade that dominated the ship’s visit in 2005.
About 30 people cheered the ship into port from the shores of Horseshoe Beach at about 9am before it docked at Throsby Wharf.
‘‘We don’t need to employ those tactics any more,’’ Greenpeace senior climate campaigner Georgina Woods said of the 2005 blockade which closed the port’s main shipping channel for five hours.
‘‘People in Newcastle are much more aware of the issues, and there’s a growing sense among people that governments are failing to read the community’s feelings towards coal and climate change.’’
The ship in port is Greenpeace’s third Rainbow Warrior. The second, which was used in the 2005 port blockade, is now a hospital ship in Bangladesh while the first was spectacularly destroyed by French bombers in Auckland Harbour in 1985.
The ship’s latest visit forms part of a national campaign against the expanding coal industry and the impact that it and climate change are having on the Great Barrier Reef.
Greenpeace’s head of program Ben Pearson said the visit was also about helping Newcastle groups in their campaign against the planned fourth coal loader which will double the coal export capacity of the port.
Police kept a close eye on the Rainbow Warrior today. The Newcastle Herald boarded the ship and joined Greenpeace and other environmental groups in two tender boats on an inspection of the new loader site and was tracked by two police vessels.
Steve Phillips, a spokesman for the Coal Terminal Action Group, said the new coal loader and the expansion of the region’s coal exports would have dire health and environmental consequences.
‘‘I don’t think people realise the size of what’s proposed here,’’ he said. ‘‘This new terminal will have the capacity to move 120 million tonnes of coal a year - that’s more than what the entire port puts out already.
‘‘Aside from the environmental damage, there are health impacts as well - coal dust is already at crisis point in most of Newcastle’s suburbs.’’
The Rainbow Warrior will leave port on Friday morning.
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