The Next Eco-Warriors Read Free Page B

when the Earth needed him most ... when I needed him most.
    Then there it was, his last breath. A last exhale, and it was all over. It was the end of him, the end of our relationship, and the end of an era.

    _________

    AROUND THE TIME OF MY DAD'S ILLNESS, he had sent me on my first environmental campaign. I had traveled the world on my own and was sickenedwith what I had seen. It was the same old story anywhere I went: rapid development for the pursuit of jumping on an economic steam engine headed nowhere but to a mystical “progress” land, all at the cost of hacking the planet and killing people.
    I had seen a man on a bicycle run over by a speeding truck in Guangzhou, China, because he literally couldn't keep up with development. I had seen one of the most beautiful places on Earth: heaven with waterfalls, crystal-clear water and life in all forms streaming from the island of Phi Phi, Thailand, and at the same time, its rape by mass-market tourism. I had seen a perpetual sunset in the sky in Irkutsk, Russia, from impenetrable smog. And I had seen enough; I knew I didn't want to just watch it any longer.
    Knowing I was pulsing with a desire to fight, my father bought me a one-way ticket to the west end of Canada to jump on the ship belonging to his old pal Paul Watson. Paul's vessel was called the M/V Farley Mowat , and he ran his organization the Sea Shepherd out of the nuts-and-bolts boat. The Farley , as I came to call her, looked as if it was falling apart, but yet it was this ship that helped build the organization's reputation for being pirates for the oceans. Known for ramming other vessels and being taken hostages by their opposers, Sea Shepherd's members had saved countless marine lives, from whales and dolphins to tuna. But Sea Shepherd hadn't had much “action” in a couple of years, and I wasn't expecting much. I certainly wasn't expecting much as a member of the crew.
    Growing up, I was surrounded by older hippie friends of my parents, recounting their “glory days” of the ’70s environmental movement, as if it were some phenomenal event in history that was never to happen again. I was expecting nothing short of the same old hippies in these Sea Shepherd activists. Yet to my great surprise, I found exactly the opposite: young, courageous, spirited, risk takers that had so much passion and conviction it would make Gandhi weep.
    One of the first people I met aboard the vessel was Peter Hammarstedt, a Swede who probably inspired me most of all. He was younger than me (and I was nineteen at the time), yet he had already fought on the frontlines to protect wild buffalo, would later come to be arrested (numerous times), waseventually exiled from Canada for his fight for seals, and worked his way to being the youngest first mate for Sea Shepherd in his efforts to save whales. Despite his tough-guy stance and militant veganism that might scare off some, he was more humane than anyone I had ever met in my generation. He was a warrior, but he had a deep core about him and a beautiful heart. He showed me the potential our generation really has within itself.
    During that campaign, we sailed from Canada to the Galapagos Islands, and after several puke buckets later, I arrived on the majestic islands. The Galapagos Islands are one of the last places on Earth that are still mostly intact, with high numbers of endemic species found nowhere else in the world, both on land and in the ocean. It was Captain Watson's wish to try to keep the islands safe from humans' destructive nature.
    I remember staring out at the volcanic island for the first time, lush with green vegetation and beaming with life in its waters. Yet, there I was, feeling unsure of myself and of what I was doing there. I had a burning urge inside me to do something, but I wasn't sure what I could do here in the Galapagos and what I could do with Sea Shepherd. I wasn't a sailor, as the puke buckets proved, and I had no seaman skills whatsoever. But I was