In one of those "the operation was a success but the patient died" scenarios, Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior II damaged a coral reef in the central Philippines--during a climate change awareness program.
The ship and its Birkenstock crew will have to pony up after being assessed a 640,000 peso ($15,000) fine after the 55m motor-assisted environmentally friendly schooner ran aground at the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park on Monday, according to park manager angelique Songco.
The ship's bow sliced through a reef formation measuring 160sq m, she said.
There's no word from the Philippines about how embarrassed Greenpeace's perpetual Peter Pans of the sea felt about the mishap, that's destined to go down as one for the books.
But a landlubber Greenpeacer in the Philippines described the incident as accidental, and said Greenpeace would comply with the marine park authorities' ruling.
Rainbow Warrior 11 arrived in the reservation in the middle of the Sulu Sea, about 600km south of Manila, last weekend as part of a four-month asia-Pacific campaign to promote earth-friendly energy sources.
Greenpeace campaign manager Red Constantino said the crew made dive sorties to inspect the effect of global warming on the coral foundation, which is listed among the World Heritage sites as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
The chart indicated we were a mile and a half from the coral reef when the ship ran aground, Constantino said. and even if it sounds like the kind of map UNESCO might provide, apparently, the august 2005 navigational map was provided by the mapping office of the Philippine government.
It was the ship's own rubber boats that safely towed it into deeper water, and it escaped serious damage.
Interrupted from live sorties, Rainbow Warrior II was heading back to the Puerto Princesa on the western island of Palawan to file an incident report with the marine park office.
Constantino said that Greenpeace divers on the Tubbataha expedition had found only healthy coral and no evidence of bleaching, believed to be caused by warming sea temperatures.
In typical Greenpeace fashion though, he said the healthy state of the Tubbataha Reefs did not disprove the theory of global warming, which he described as an "extremely complicated science".
Meanwhile, coral reef lovers of the world shouldn't be toasting Greenpeace with the traditional scotch on the rocks.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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