Heritage corner Hope floats: the Greenpeace Esperanza retires after two decades, but the light shines on

Hope floats: the Greenpeace Esperanza retires after two decades, but the light shines on

by Greenpeace International

For over 20 years a Greenpeace ship called Esperanza – ‘Hope’ in English – lit up the darkness in the fight to protect the environment. Its voyages have now come to an end, leaving a proud legacy of inspiration and environmental protection. Built in 1984 in Gdańsk, the former Soviet/Russian firefighting vessel was acquired by Greenpeace in 2000 and conducted operations on whaling, nuclear transport, illegal fishing and illegal logging, alongside helping with scientific research on climate and energy. Its high speed and ice-class credentials meant it was also used for polar expeditions, pursuits, and for reaching places few others could. Until a well-earned retirement, Esperanza carried the light of ‘Hope’ all over the world.

Over the course of two decades, the crew of Esperanza confronted pirate fishing and whaling harpoons, from the polar regions to West Africa, teamed up with scientists and journalists to reveal illegal activities and conduct groundbreaking studies. They fought on behalf of people and planet against those who are prepared to sacrifice both for profit and power.

‘Espy,’ as it is lovingly known inside Greenpeace, carried our activists to parts of the world that are inaccessible to most. It’s often in these most remote areas where the worst environmental and humanitarian crimes take place. It brought aid and humanitarian relief to those in need in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake of 2010, and 2012’s Typhoon Bopha, which devastated swathes of the Philippines.

As the fastest ship in the Greenpeace fleet, Esperanza was often used to chase high-speed vessels and to confront environmental criminals few others could catch. Esperanza’s ice-class credentials meant it took these fights into the freezing waters of the Antarctic in numerous polar expeditions.

It was, and always will be, a symbol of hope, born from the support of millions of people around the world and put into action by those who risked their safety and lives to stand against impossible odds for the protection of our shared environment.

Leading the fight

As the world changes, so must Greenpeace’s maritime operations. Esperanza, even with its electric drive, had a much larger carbon footprint than other Greenpeace vessels and despite the constant efforts of dedicated crew, technicians, volunteers, and supporters to hone and improve the ship’s technical features, its fundamental biology does not allow it to be consistent with Greenpeace’s vision for a zero-carbon future. The ship thus arrived at its final port stop in the Spanish Gijón, where it will be retired for good.

The crew of Esperanza launched a solar-powered aircraft, helicopters and submarines from its decks and gave the ship many green renovations from the start of service and throughout its life, but in the midst of a climate emergency with environmental crimes still being committed all over the world, Greenpeace needs to lead the way on carbon emissions while at the same time finding more flexible and local maritime resources to allow us to take the fight to remote places few can go. Indeed, while Esperanza will be dismantled – to the highest environmental standards – its spirit and the hope that it represents will live on in the continuing fight to protect our fragile Earth.

Gracias!

Before joining the Greenpeace fleet in 2000, the ship, which began life as a Soviet-then-Russian firefighting vessel, had been known as Echo Fighter. The first Greenpeace crews aboard painted out the ‘h’ to spell Eco Fighter, but as the organisation began an environmentally friendly refit of the vessel an online vote was called to choose a permanent name. Thousands of activists in Argentina and other Hispanic countries saw a historic opportunity for the first ever Greenpeace ship with a Spanish name. Bringing together their enthusiasm for action at sea and the emerging digital activism of the era, they flooded the vote with one name: Esperanza.

For more than two decades the Esperanza’s story has been the sum of the actions of its talented and dedicated crew, the brave activists and volunteers who called it home, the teams who helped to deliver hope in action through campaigns and the supporters who brought Esperanza into the Greenpeace fleet, named the ship, and stood behind it on every part of its journey.

Esperanza has hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to thank. It is perhaps fitting that the ship’s final destination is in a Spanish-speaking country: the language of its name’s birth. To those people, and all of you, who have carried the light of hope in your hearts, we say “gracias.”

Photo: Greenpeace

The longing

While we don’t know for sure all the places that light will be needed in the future, we do know it will never be extinguished, and we will bring wherever it needs to go, together. It is often said that a ship is so much more than the physical construction: it comprises the heart and soul of the people who make it go. As the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “If you want to build a ship, don’t gather up people to collect wood or assign tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” ‚

A few highlights from Esperanza’s legacy 2002: Launch, deforestation action and meeting with anti-apartheid icon 2003: Forests and indigenous relationships

Photo: Greenpeace/Daniel Beltrá After Esperanza’s extensive green conversion, it was officially launched in its homeport of Amsterdam in early 2002. There followed a series of actions across Europe against imported timber, including Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, targeting European governments’ failure to tackle destructive logging in the world’s remaining ancient forests. Later that year, Archbishop Desmond Tutu blessed the vessel and the crew in Cape Town and joined them in wishing for a clean, peaceful and nuclear-free world.

Photo: Gavin Newman/Greenpeace Esperanza’s Endangered Forests, Endangered Freedoms tour of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest investigated the Bush administration’s large-scale clearcutting and logging of forests across the US. Many local community members, including the Indigenous Tlingit peoples, welcomed the ship with accommodation and logistical support. Also that year, crew members of Esperanza were arrested for the first time off the coast of Gibraltar while protesting the illegal import of oil.

Photo: Greenpeace/Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert In a joint expedition with Arctic Sunrise against Southern Ocean whaling, Esperanza was rammed by Kyo Maru, a Japanese whaling vessel, as it attempted to block the transfer of a dead minke whale to the Nisshin Maru factory ship, generating publicity that created space and appetite for the ambitious Defending Our Oceans mega-tour in 2006-07.

2006: Defending Our Oceans

Photo: Greenpeace/John Novis Esperanza launched Greenpeace Indonesia’s first action against forest destruction when it blocked the Gran Couva ship, which was carrying a huge cargo of crude palm oil, and crew scaled the sides, calling for the Indonesian government to protect forests from the rampant deforestation stemming from palm oil and pulp industries.

2009: Defending Our Pacific/Pacific Voices fisheries

Photo: Greenpeace/Pierre Gleizes Spurred on by the success of 2005 anti-whaling confrontations, Esperanza began an 18-month world tour. The Defending Our Oceans expedition was the longest and most ambitious that Greenpeace had ever mounted, covering West Africa pirate fishing, the Mediterranean, India, Singapore, Pacific Islands fisheries, Philippines, US (Hawaii, California) and Mexico.

2007: Completing the first journey

Photo: Greenpeace/James Alcock During Esperanza’s expedition to expose unsustainable and illegal fishing practices in the Pacific, a campaign which had already for a few years helped mobilise Pacific Island countries against industrial states fishing in their waters, then Cook Islands Prime Minister, Jim Maruai, paid a visit to the crew.

2010: Relief work with MSF on Haiti earthquake

Photo: Greenpeace/Daniel Beltrá An underwater research mission to campaign for Marine Protected Area (MPA) off the coast of Alaska took Esperanza to Amchitka, the island that Phyllis Cormack never made it to in the first ever Greenpeace expedition in 1971. The ship also campaigned for the protection of dugongs threatened by the creation of a US airbase in Okinawa, and continued to work against Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean – and even in Japanese waters. When a fire broke out on Nisshin Maru, one of the whaling fleet ships involved in ramming Esperanza in 2005, crew of the Greenpeace ship offered safety support and to tow it out of the Southern Ocean. The offer was refused.

Photo: STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images In one of many collaborations with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders; MSF), Esperanza delivered supplies – thousands of blankets, bars of soap and other essentials – to the Haitian capital Portau-Prince following the devastating 7.0 earthquake that rocked the country in January. The ship also conducted climate-related scientific research on ocean acidification (using mesocosms: outdoor research system) in Svalbard with the Leipzig Institute, teeing up confrontations the following year.

Photo: Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace Following the previous year’s scientific research, Esperanza evaded the Danish navy off the west coast of Greenland and its crew scaled Cairn Energy’s oil rig Leiv Eriksson, the only rig in the world poised to begin new deep sea drilling in the Arctic. The confrontation, joined by Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo and Paul Simonon, bassist of The Clash, set the scene for a global Arctic oil campaign and years of work on oil, climate and energy.

2012: Typhoon Bopha humanitarian work

Photo: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace In a joint action, Rainbow Warrior and Esperanza teamed up to intercept the first ever shipment of Arctic oil to Europe. Carried from the Prirazlomnoye oil platform, the centre of the Arctic 30 case, the oil on board Mikhail Ulyanov was blocked in Rotterdam. Many members of the newly freed Arctic 30 were involved, after their three months in detention in Russia made them globally recognised. President Anote Tong of Kiribati and Yeb Saño, the then Philippines Climate Change Commissioner known for his UN COP19 speech on record-breaking Super Typhoon Haiyan, sailed on board to witness the Arctic sea ice minimum and demand urgent climate action, connecting the melting polar ice with the rising sea levels and worsening climate impacts in their respective countries. Yeb joined Greenpeace Southeast Asia as Executive Director two years later. Other high-profile crew members in 2014 included actors Emma Thompson (England) and Michelle Thrush (First Nations, Canada) and English fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Esperanza occupied and successfully halted Arctic oil drilling efforts by Norwegian state-owned oil company Statoil.

2015: Chasing fossil fuel villains across the world

Photo: TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images When the record-breaking category 5 Super Typhoon Bopha (aka Typhoon Pablo) struck the Philippine island of Mindanao, Esperanza diverted from an expedition to Manila for a Pacific fisheries conference to provide emergency humanitarian relief in cooperation with Philippine government agencies.

2013: Pacific campaigns expand

Photo: Vincenzo Floramo/Greenpeace Climbers from Esperanza scaled Shell’s Polar Pioneer oil rig in April during a chase across the Pacific from Malaysia to Alaska that came to be known as The Crossing. It was one of a global series against Shell’s Arctic oil drilling by Esperanza and others, including First Nations and other Indigenous protesters. Inspired by these, thousands of people in kayaks and other boats joined the ‘Paddle in Seattle’ (May) to protest Shell’s Arctic drilling plans, and then climbers swung from St Johns Bridge in Portland (July) to block the departure of an Arctic-bound Shell vessel. Later that year, Greenpeace Mexico and Esperanza worked in the Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California to protect the vaquita, a gravely endangered species of porpoise, from extinction. The campaign against illegal gillnets in the area, which often involved great personal risk, made the vaquita a highly visible public issue and eventually pushed then president Enrique Peña Nieto to take action.

2016: Targeting destructive fishing and palm oil practices

Photo: Dean Sewell/Greenpeace Esperanza’s work on Pacific fisheries widened to Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines and then Mauritius, Mozambique and Madagascar for an Indian Ocean campaign to document tuna transshipment and patrol the region with government authorities. The ship also carried a research mission to the Queensland coast in defence of the Great Barrier Reef, after the Australian government approved a massive dredging project at Abbot Point to rip up seabed to make way for coal shipments.

Photo: Will Rose/Greenpeace Esperanza’s high-tech expedition to confront illegal, unregulated and undocumented fishing forced the world’s biggest tuna producer, Thai Union, to the negotiation table to clean up its act. Combing huge expanses of the Indian Ocean for marine snares called FADs with solar powered drones, crew converted them into electricity supply for coastal communities and confronted vessels using lights to attract fish. Days later, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission banned the practice. Then, Esperanza staged a blockade of palm oil in Rotterdam, the palm oil gateway into Europe, while directly affected activists from the cargo’s country of origin, Indonesia, blocked refineries on shore. The ship also passed by London’s iconic Tower Bridge during a UK campaign on microplastics.

Photo: Greenpeace Esperanza hosted scientific research and world-first imaging of the undersea Amazon Reef, a unique biome where a French oil giant was bidding for oil licences. In 2018, after sustained pressure, Total lost its battle to drill in the area. The Hope in West Africa tour covered six countries with patrols against illegal fishing alongside national authorities. Ministers from Mauritania and the President of Guinea Bissau visited Esperanza to show continued support for Greenpeace’s many years of work on West African fisheries.

2018: Drop dirty palm oil

Photo: Suzanne Plunkett/Greenpeace As the Pole to Pole world expedition finished up in Antarctica in January, a new global challenge was emerging: COVID-19. Maritime operations suffered along with the rest of the world as a pandemic was declared, but Esperanza made it to the North Sea for an investigation into a methane leak that resulted from a major blowout in gas drilling operations 30 years earlier. The ship also dropped inert granite boulders at precise locations in the Dogger Bank Marine Protected Area in the North Sea, to help prevent destructive bottom trawlers from operating in a new exclusion zone.

2021: Final confrontation

Photo: Marten van Dijl/Greenpeace Six activists from Esperanza boarded a shipment of palm oil from Indonesia to the Netherlands and were detained on board. The action, against the world’s biggest and dirtiest palm oil trader, Wilmar, was part of a series of protests worldwide to urge food giant Mondelēz, the makers of Oreo and one of the biggest brands in the world, to drop their suppliers of dirty palm oil.

2019-2020: Pole to Pole

Photo: Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace Further work dropping boulders to thwart the activities of destructive bottom trailers continued in the English Channel early in the year, before Esperanza’s final confrontation in Sagunto, Spain, against the national gas grid operator Enagas. Crew from 18 countries blocked the entrance to the port to prevent a ship loaded with liquefied fossil gas from entering, highlighting the harmful effects of gas and other fossil fuels on the most vulnerable, as European energy ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss rising energy prices. The action came just weeks after a huge victory when Greenland dropped all future oil exploration, demonstrating that activism, such as Esperanza’s actions against the Leiv Eriksson rig in 2011, works.

2021: The eternal light of Hope

Photo: Christian Åslund/Greenpeace Esperanza and Arctic Sunrise jointly undertook one of Greenpeace’s biggest ever expeditions from 2019-20. An almost year-long ‘pole to pole’ voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic, building the case for a UN Global Ocean Treaty. Scientists, activists, campaigners and famous faces including Marion Cotillard (France), Shailene Woodley (USA) and Gustaf Skarsgård (Sweden) all came aboard the ships during the ‘Protect the Oceans’ expedition, which began with the most northerly music concert ever and took a Turtle Journey through the world’s oceans to research and highlight the threats of climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, deep sea mining and oil drilling.

Photo: Will Rose/Greenpeace Once crew in Spain were released from detention and the ship’s anchors released by police, Esperanza’s retirement journey began with a triumphant final return to Amsterdam. Thank you, Esperanza! True to your name, you gave millions of people hope. And we will always find ‘Esperanza’ in our hearts.