Harbour Action in Lübeck (01.07.2000)

    Saturday was the day of so called „harbour action” in Lübeck. Harbour actions are the different activities that take place in the harbours we are visiting. In Lübeck we were speaking a lot about A20 – the highway that is planned to be constructed from Lübeck to Szczecin in Poland and maybe even further, to Russia. The construction of A20 is destroying the environment near Lübeck, what we could observe during the slide-show in the Saturday morning. Jörn, Johannes and Christoph showed us on the slides, how did the landscape look like before and after beginning the construction.
    That impressed us a lot. In the afternoon we rented bikes and went to see the place of construction by ourselves. We were riding our bikes for over an hour through beautiful, old-fashioned city of Lübeck. Then we came to A20 and saw how much people can harm the environment.
    But that is not all. In the evening we had a guest, Dieter, who showed us more slides, this time about another highway project – A33. Some people are protesting against this construction for many years. In my opinion all people should ride their bikes, that would solve many problems like pollution, parking places, car thieves and so on. We don´t need more expensive highways. It is good that it is not only my opinions, because I have met here people who share it.

    Harbour Action in Copenhagen (07.07.2000)

    I wouldn´t call the harbour action that took place in the morning a success. The idea was very good: we were staying in the centre of the city giving cookies and leaflets to people who use public transport or bikes instead of cars. In my country it would be a big success and all people would enjoy it. But not here. Danish people seemed really unfriendly, they didn´t want to get leaflets from us and they didn´t even took the cookies! They were saying some nasty words at us (I think so because I don´t understand Danish), or acting as if we didn´t exist. This wasn´t nice. During two hours of this action we distributed maybe 50 leaflets. So that is why for me it is not a success though our Danish friends told us that this is normal in this country.
    Later that day everything was just wonderful. After lunch we rented some bikes and went for a guided tour in Norrebro, a district of Copenhagen that is very ecological. People have some nice gardens around their blocks of flats, they select garbage into special bins and we even saw a totally ecological house with solar bateries and so on. This was very interesting and I hope to see this kind of initiatives in Poland!

    Harbour Action in Swinoujscie and Szczecin (14. + 15.07.2000)

    Action against fuel terminal PORTA-PETROL which is located on the corner of a waterway on the Swina river. Because of the unfortunate location of this investment Polish NGO’s recognise it as a big danger which could result in an ecological catastrophe. Independent experts bring to this more facts about the environmental impact of the PORTA-PETROL terminal. After a Polish ecological organization won four cases in court the investment has been blocked since 1998. Still powerful lobbies are working on this. They announced that the fuel terminal will be opened in late autumn 2000. That’s why environmental organisations did not stop protesting against the investment which is located in a health-resort city. The LOVIS- part in this campaign started in Swinoujscie on July 14th early in the morning.
    During this harbour action 40 people from Denmark, Lithuania, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Estonia distributed 1000 leaflets in the most crowded places in the city. We informed local inhabitants and tourists about important facts which were never mentioned in public before. After 1.30pm we started a happening. There were drummers, artists on stilts and the crew of the LOVIS ship. Altogether we made a simulation of the problems on the waterway. People who were passing by could realise that is not so easy sailing\walking on the Swina river when big tankships (artists on stilts) manoeuvre at the same time. Also during the happening three brave persons hung up a transparent on the waterway, which was supposed to signalise danger to the ships passing by.
    Ten days after our harbour action we got a letter from the vicepresident of the PORTA-PETROL company. He called the protesters „naive young persons” and even informed the participants’ organisations that the persons responsible for the actions were liars and are going to be sued. It’s very interesting how naive young persons could make an „international scandal”, as the action was also called in the letter.
    More information about the campaign against PORTA-PETROL can be found on the website www.most.org.pl/fzs/

    The Harbour action in Szczecin started before noon. At eleven 'o clock there was exhibition called „Time for the Odra River”. There were many beautiful pictures from the area of this river. The next we saw a lecture about Odra River. In the evening we changed the participants on our ship.
    After we got to our rooms and left there our luggage, we went to the concert of drummer band. We had a great time there. Tired with dancing and the whole day full of many attractions we came back to Lovis.

    Harbour Action in Kalmar (21. + 22.07.2000)

    The program:
    Now the fun could begin!
    As the press came in the morning it rained! As we biked to watch a water project it rained! But as we came back to relax the sun started to shine!
    Later we planed the harbour action for the next day. Afterwards we visited the musical „Hair”, an outside performance. It was a good idea, especially because it was a really nice evening, but unfortunately it was in Swedish and the atmosphere didn’t get better by the fact that the place was right beside the prison! But all in all a very cultural day!

    The next day we had more program! First we walked into the city to make our Harbour action. There hadn’t really been anything planned by the Swedish group so we had just decided on the ship to make it some kind of fun event, where everybody could practise their artistic skills. So in the middle of town we put up our information material and started joggling, painting faces, doing acrobatics, playing with a diablo and much more. It wasn’t very political, but good fun.
    In the afternoon there was a lecture about Baltic Sea ecology and initiatives for protection and co-operation in the area. If people had not been so tired after the last days of excitement it would have been excellent. In between there was also room for a bit of advertisement for Kalmar (it seemed like the city council people saw more reasons of us choosing Kalmar for the Swedish harbour in the project than we did).