The Blog

We set off at 7am, a little after sunrise. The waters were surprisingly calm - unlike my stomach, which was churning with excitement. We were looking for something no one had seen for a decade: a massive riser turret mooring, the size of an apartment block. For 25 years, it had been used to exploit an oil and gas field off the coast of Western Australia.

The whale shark, the world’s biggest fish, is what draws people to UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park. These gentle giants congregate at Ningaloo, nestled on the Western Australian coastline near Exmouth, between March and August each year, thrilling thousands of visitors and fuelling the area’s booming tourism industry.

Shark Bay, located at the most westerly point of Australia, is one of a handful of marine World Heritage sites across the globe. It’s home to some of the planet’s most extraordinary creatures, including the oldest lifeforms on Earth, as well as dugongs, turtles and, of course, sharks.

Often described as the Galapagos Islands of the Indian Ocean, there are few places in Australia wilder than the remote Houtman Abrolhos Islands, a marine archipelago of 210 islands off the coast of Geraldton, Western Australia.

Most tourists who visit Perth make it out to Rottnest Island to visit the cute quokkas and marvel at the island’s lonely wind turbine, which once attracted the wrath of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. But just beyond Rottnest lies a much less-explored region - Perth Canyon, one of the best places in the world to spot the endangered blue whale, the largest animal on the planet.

We spoke with Emma from School Strike 4 Climate on Thursday when she visited the Rainbow Warrior in Fremantle during its Whales Not Woodside Ship Tour to learn more about how she became involved in climate activism, what motivates her, and get her thoughts on Meg O’Neil and Woodside’s Burrup Hub gas expansion.

The end of whaling in Albany marked a turning point in the fight to protect whales from extinction. In the 1970s, the greatest threat to whales was whaling. Now the greatest threat comes from fossil fuel companies like Woodside who are driving dangerous climate change.

3rd of May is International Day of the Sun! It’s an opportunity to celebrate the most abundant energy source on Earth, and see what needs to be done to get Australian homes, businesses and vehicles running on sunshine.

To help celebrate the return of the Rainbow Warrior to Australian shores in 2023, take a sail with us down memory lane to revisit some other historic times Greenpeace’s iconic flagship vessel has stopped by to say g'day.