Return of the Warrior / New Age Warrior
NZ Weekend Herald 12 January 2013
From nuclear testing to global warming — the cause may have changed but Greenpeace is back on the ocean waves. Catherine Masters set sail on the revamped Rainbow Warrior
Lucy Excerpts from the article
The trip to Matauri Bay was to have the new boat blessed by Ngati Kura and reconnect with the iwi, which had allowed the ‘‘burial’’ to be there.
As the ceremony on board was going on, small boats gathered around on the blue/green sparkling waters of a glorious summer’s day and in one of them was New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless who swung off a rope to swim in the sea and then went across to the Rainbow Warrior to watch for a short time.
Lawless had been a climate ambassador for Greenpeace but stepped up her involvement in February last year when she and other activists boarded an oil drilling ship in New Plymouth. They refused to get off in order to stop it leaving for the Arctic to explore for oil, which activists say it can do only because the ice is melting so fast due to climate change.
Lawless played New Zealander Bunny McDiarmid’s character ( the other crew member from the bombed boat present) alongside Sam Neill in a film about the bombing of the original boat and said this is one reason why she is happy to be involved with Greenpeace — ‘‘ I knew they were good, serious, honest and also fun people, truthful people.’’
She said she took part in the protest action in Taranaki because ‘‘ the Arctic is the big, fat budgie in the bloody coalmine, it’s not even a canary. This [climate change] is going to affect all our futures around the world so it’s a great symbol of the monster we have to get on top of.’’
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See more of Lucy's role as an Eco-Warrior and Greenpeace Ambassador