“You can’t sink a rainbow.”
The iconic Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior will sail into Auckland today to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985.
A dawn ceremony of remembrance will be hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei on board the Rainbow Warrior from 7am on 10 July 2025 at Halsey Street Wharf in the Viaduct.
Speakers include:
Russel Norman, Greenpeace Aotearoa executive directorTui Warmenhoven, Ngati Porou, Greenpeace Aotearoa board chair
Sharon Hawke, Ngāti Whātua ŌrākeiCarmen Gravatt, Greenpeace International programme director
Stephanie Mills, former Greenpeace nuclear campaigner
The Rainbow Warrior comes fresh from confronting bottom trawlers off the East Coast of New Zealand on the Chatham Rise, a biodiversity hotspot under threat from the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling. Activists from the Rainbow Warrior painted the words Ocean Killer on a Talley’s bottom trawling vessel and then again on a Sealord vessel. In response to the painting in June.
Russel Norman says, “The Rainbow Warrior’s return to Aotearoa comes at a pivotal moment as the fight to protect our planet’s fragile life-support systems has never been more urgent.
“On a planetary scale, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and accelerating species extinction pose an existential threat to us all, while here in Aotearoa, our Government is waging an all-out war on nature.
“As we remember the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the murder of Fernando Pereira onboard that night 40 years ago, it’s important to remember why the French Government committed such an extreme act of violence.
“They targeted our ship because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective. We posed a threat to the French Government’s military programme and colonial power in the Pacific.
“And it’s critical to remember that they failed to stop us. They failed to intimidate us, and they failed to silence us.
“We showed that you can’t sink a rainbow. We showed that courage is contagious. Greenpeace only grew stronger and continued the successful campaign against nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
“That lesson is important because now, forty years on, we are just as effective, and it is the fossil fuel industry and the billionaire oligarchs who try to stop us. This time, not with bombs but with armies of lawyers and legal attacks of the kind that right now could threaten the very existence of Greenpeace in the US and beyond.
“But just like in 1985 when the French bombed our ship, now too in 2025, we are showing that we can not be intimidated, we will not back down, and we will not be silenced.
“The Rainbow Warrior has sailed ever since as a symbol of resistance in action. And we cannot be silenced because we are a movement of people committed to peace and to protecting Earth’s ability to sustain life, protecting the blue oceans, the forests and the life we share this planet with,” says Norman.
Following the anniversary, the Rainbow Warrior will be open to the public for tours and talks with the crew on the weekends of 12 July and 19th July.
A multi-billion-dollar US-based oil pipeline company, Energy Transfer, has brought two back-to-back SLAPP suits against Greenpeace International and Greenpeace in the US, after Greenpeace US showed solidarity with the 2016 peaceful Indigenous-led protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The first case was dismissed, but the Greenpeace organisations continue to defend against the second case, which is ongoing after a North Dakota jury recently awarded over 660 million USD in damages to the pipeline giant.