Translator: Elena Montrasio Reviewer: John Ockey
(Music)
(Music ends)
This is what my life needs today.
Shortly, I will explain to you how I had a sort of epiphany
the moment I made my decision.
Perhaps, it can be captured in one phrase:
"I love not man the less, but Nature more."
Maybe these were not the exact words I had in mind
the day I made my choice,
however, I was fascinated as I discovered they had been written
by a hand that was not my own.
They are, indeed, the words of the poet Byron.
Since then, they have been my guide.
I was still a young girl,
but they legitimize, in the most technical sense,
my existence on this planet and what I chose to do with my life,
along with my most recent and drastic decision.
For the past four years I have spent most of my life
on board one of the Sea Shepherd's vessels,
an international organization whose aim it is to protect the oceans.
The Bob Barker was my home for several months.
I am strongly convinced
that it is essential that each one of us assumes responsibility
to make a choice, in order to save our future.
Sure, it is much easier to ignore, to switch TV channels, to turn the page,
because knowing forces us to make a choice.
And, at times, choices clash with personal pleasure, with habits.
They require hardship and sacrifice.
I made my choice, and my encounter with Sea Shepherd,
in fact, completely random,
was love at first sight
for their direct action protecting animals and their habitats,
which makes all the difference, and which I so desperately needed.
And so I left everything behind,
my home, my job, my family, my private life.
When I look back to when I was living a so called
'normal life'
I can't forget the looming feeling of depression,
stemming from a life which I had never felt was mine.
And when I realized I wasn't really living anymore,
I felt fear strangling me
in a grip that, for days on end, took my breath away.
Well, before it was too late, I decided to drop everything
and to honor Byron's words.
Because, if I'm not afraid of dying, I am terrified of not really living.
On board, I am the designated photographer.
I have to document what happens on the high seas,
often thousands of miles from the coast, from civilization,
where the law does exist, but is not enforced,
so it is just as if it did not exist.
Sea Shepherd ensures that the law is enforced.
I was talking earlier about ethics, morals, ideals,
but the law is something different,
it is real, tangible,
it regulates our lives for more than obvious reasons.
And so, the choice I made
was also made in the name of the law,
in order to save the creatures who live in my beloved, deep blue.
I'd like to tell you something:
every year, in the Antarctic Ocean,
thousands of whales gather during their northern migration.
They gather to feed on krill.
The beauty and harmony of this cycle have continued for thousands of years,
until humans decided that whales
would make a good food source, at first,
but then turned them into a mere way to make money.
So much so that they hunted them to the brink of extinction.
Then, in 1986,
the International Whaling Commission
declared whaling illegal.
However, it still allowed whaling for scientific research.
So, Japan, on the sides of its ships,
writes 'Research' in huge letters,
delivers to the Commission alleged research projects,
completely nonsensical,
and keeps killing, with impunity, thousand of whales.
And it hunts them where it is easier to do so,
and less likely that anyone will go and oppose its activities:
the Whale Sanctuary in the Southern Ocean.
From 1986 to 2002 Japan has killed over 25,000 whales, illegally.
Sea Shepherd doesn't sit around and watch.
The World Charter for Nature is very clear.
Every single citizen of the world holds the right and the duty
to act in order to protect wildlife
and natural ecosystems.
And so, ships and crews are readied
in order to stop Japan's illegal, irresponsible
and bloody massacre.
Killing a whale is not an easy thing.
An explosive harpoon is driven into the body of the whale,
who, desperately fighting for its life,
dies after a prolonged agony,
to become lunch meat that, these days, hardly anyone eats anymore,
in Japan, or elsewhere;
or to be turned into beauty products.
Sea Shepherd puts everything on the line, its ships included,
but the more powerful weapon of the shepherds of the sea
is the passion of every single one of its volunteers,
who refuse to stop, while facing any danger,
to put an end to illegal actions.
Let me tell you one of the many stories I have lived in first person.
I was on the monkey deck of the Bob Barker.
My task was to document the events taking place.
I still remember those moments with such strong emotions.
I felt like I had been thrown into the middle of an action movie,
because, honestly,
my eyes could not believe what they were witnessing.
Because the hunting season lasts as long as the Antarctic summer,
three months, at least,
the Japanese factory ship had to approach the tanker
in order to fuel up - another illegal activity
in those waters.
And we are back talking about legality.
Well, in total desperation, the Captain of the Japanese vessel,
violently pushed his 8,000 ton ship
towards our small Bob.
He flooded us with the salty, icy water from his water pumps
to keep us from governing our ship.
For me, in spite of the wide angle of my camera,
it looks like an enormous giant moving towards us without hesitation.
The Bob is dangerously listing to one side.
My heart is racing,
but, strangely enough, not because I feel in personal danger,
but rather for fear they can really push us out of the way,
destroy our ship, and defeat us in our purpose.
I can hear myself saying, over and over, "Don't give in, Peter, don't give in."
It will only be in the next days that I will find out
what was actually happening right below,
on the bridge.
Peter's determination, our very young Captain.
"I will not move.
If you want to take my place, you will have to sink me."
(Video) Man: We need to stop this refueling from taking place.
(Collision noise)
Japanese ship: Mayday, Mayday.
Bob Barker, we are getting rammed.
Sea Shepherd: Nisshin Maru, this is the Bob Barker,
I will not move. I will not move.
You will have to sink me right here next to the Sun Laurel.
I'm not going to move for you.
(Music)
Japanese ship: You are destroying our boat.
Sea Shepherd: Steve Irwin, they are destroying us!
(Music)
Steve Irwin, we've regained propulsion,
I have power, I'm not backing down.
(Music)
(Applause)
Marianna Baldo: Thank you.
And how did it end?
Well, from up there, through our Bob's gashed steel plates,
I see the gigantic black silhouette backing up, defeated.
We were actually sending them home, they were out of fuel.
We had won the battle.
That day we had, indeed, saved the whales.
That day, as well.
Earlier, I mentioned the law.
Well, after a four-year trial,
at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague,
we finally heard the verdict.
March 31st, 2014:
"Japanese whaling is a mere commercial activity.'
The 'Research' writing on the sides of the ships
is acknowledged as a lie, as a ruse.
From that very day, the Japanese government is prohibited
from setting hunting quotas.
Thank God, the law prevailed.
But now let me take you to another part of the world.
Because I chose to protect the oceans, after the Antarctic season
I moved to the North Atlantic.
I decided to navigate around this small archipelago,
the Faeroe Islands,
an area through which large dolphin groups migrate.
These beautiful animals,
highly intelligent and sensitive,
and with a sense of family as strong as our own,
swim through these waters, tired and trustful,
in search of food and a place to rest.
However, alas, what they find is death.
The islanders mercilessly slaughter them all.
And what once was a subsistence hunt,
for decades now has turned into a feast, "The Feast",
a terrible, gory massacre inundated with blood.
Entire families are exterminated.
A genetic patrimony disappears, forever,
following the path of extinction.
And then we discover that the majority of their slaughtered flesh
returns to the bottom of the ocean piling up in actual cemeteries.
I saw
men of all ages, boys included, wade in the water up to their waists,
possessed by a desire to kill, with the strongest satisfaction,
those innocent and helpless creatures.
In the meantime, women enjoy the show from the shore,
and even push their kids to the waters edge,
so that they can participate in the slaughter.
I could not even fathom having a child who,
with a carving knife in hand, proceeds
to slaughter a defenceless animal.
And not for hunger, but for the sole pleasure to kill.
What kind of values would my kids grow up with?
Those barbaric traditions
are supported even by the Danish government.
In order to obstruct us, and those who, like us, oppose all of this,
Denmark even employs its battleships, its police force.
Last summer I was, in fact, in the Faeroe Islands,
trying to photograph
the slaughter of about a hundred pilot whales,
that, unfortunately, I would not be able to save anymore.
I was arrested even before arriving on site.
Think about it, I was on a tiny Zodiac,
and I only had my camera with me.
In the next few days,
the prosecution, the trial and the conviction to be jailed
for my sole intention to stop the slaughter
with a camera that, needless to say, was confiscated.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Believe me, there is no way to forget the cries
of those animals, their fear, their pain,
the terror they are subjected to,
in those last, endless moments,
while they fight for their lives,
the adults trying to protect the young,
as the ocean turns bright red with the spilling of their blood.
It can't be forgotten. Ever.
By stirring the waters, whales and dolphins,
along with the phytoplankton,
contribute to the oxygenation of the air on our planet.
Protecting these animals
is also a way to safeguard the oceans.
And taking care of the oceans is a way to ensure
that we can continue to be able to live on this planet.
Because the one thing that all living beings have in common,
indistinctly, regardless of our species,
is that, to live, we must breath.
So,
I think,
I strongly believe, that we cannot always expect
that someone else will take care of things for us,
let alone those which concern everyone, indistinctly, globally,
because we are 'the other'
and the planet on which we live is our home.
All of us, deep in our heart,
wish for things to change, for a better future.
I bet you all do, too.
But how many are truly willing to make some change in their lives?
I am trying.
And the first step of my transformation was to shift
from a selfish thought like:
"Me, here, now",
to "All, everywhere, always."
Thank you.
(Applause)