Overview

• Local authorities issued a decree on June 3 at Ecology Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher’s request to block the Arctic Sunrise from docking in Nice.
• The ban stems from Greenpeace’s May 21 action of depositing more than ten tonnes of rocks in a designated marine reserve to impede bottom trawling.
• Greenpeace contends the rock-laying was vital to expose and halt ongoing illegal trawling observed during its mission.
• Organization leader Mads Christensen denounced the docking prohibition as a “political” decision that unjustly penalizes environmental advocacy.
• The Arctic Sunrise had also been excluded from the World Ocean Day ship parade off Nice on May 25, making it the only activist vessel kept offshore.