Vic: Young activist pursues environmental studies first hand

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2001
Vic: Young activist pursues environmental studies first hand

By Ilsa Colson

MELBOURNE, April 2 AAP - Environment and social studies for New Zealand Year 9 student
Ruby Haazen involve much more than sitting at a desk and reading some books.

They demand more than kitchen table discussions about environmental issues with her
Greenpeace activist parents, Bunny and Henk.

The way 13-year-old Ruby learns about the wellbeing of the environment and society
is to get out there and fight for it - even if that means weeks on a yacht, facing massive
seas and vast tankers carrying nuclear waste.

"I think it did achieve something, that flotilla," Ruby said today of her most recent
Greenpeace assignment.

Ruby sailed with her parents on their yacht, Tiama, from New Zealand to join a group
of seven vessels protesting at the transport of nuclear waste through the Tasman Sea.

The flotilla gained media coverage for trying to intercept the passage of vessels carrying
nuclear waste and reprocessed nuclear reactor fuel known as plutonium MOX.

"It was just to kind of bear witness - we couldn't do anything against the tankers
because they were so big," Ruby told AAP in Melbourne today.

"But I think a lot more people now know what's going on in their own back yard."

The Nuclear Free Tasman Flotilla, which was at sea about a month, was the third Greenpeace
assignment Ruby has taken part in.

She has also accompanied her parents on board the Tiama on Greenpeace trips to the
Antipodes Islands to see in the new millennium, and to the Great Barrier Reef.

That trip had involved swimming with humpback whales - one of Ruby's favourite experiences
while sailing the world with her parents on and off over the past three years.

But her most memorable trip was a charter to take six Australian climbers to Antarctica in 1999.

"It was really incredible - it was like another world."

The Haazens are spending a few days in Melbourne before heading to Hobart to further
publicise their Greenpeace cause, and then back to Wiaheke Island where they live.

Ruby is eager to complete Year 9 "on land", and has already noticed the boost her real-life
experiences are giving her in subjects like social studies and science.

While away from home, she has been studying by correspondence via post and email.

As to what her future holds professionally, she said she hasn't given that much thought
yet - though a future far from Greenpeace and environmental activism is difficult to imagine.

"I'm pretty sure I'll still be involved somehow."

AAP imc/gfr/gmw

KEYWORD: NUCLEAR RUBY (WITH PIX)

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