Pete Bethune targets child activists

Anti-whaling conservationist Pete Bethune has launched a club to recruit schoolchildren activists from around the world.

Two months after his release from a Japanese prison in July, Mr Bethune has created Pete Bethune's Junior Activist Club on social-media site Facebook to inspire the next generation of eco-warriors.

"I want to bring kids from around the world together to discuss conservation and be inspired to take action," he said. "The message I want to get out to the kids is stand up and be counted."

Hamilton-raised Mr Bethune formed the club after children made contact through his personal Facebook site.

"I want them to take action. The young ones will make an enormous difference. If I can help someone who is 10 it means they will be contributing for the next 60 or so years.

"There was this young boy who saw funny colours on a stream with dead tadpoles and he tracked down a service station which was dumping diesel and they got fined.

"What I did was high profile near Antarctica but it can all start from one young kid seeing dead tadpoles."

Growing up in the Waikato, Mr Bethune credits a largely unsupervised childhood for his adventurous spirit.

"I was always an adventurous kid. I had a twin brother and younger brother and we roamed through the Waikato.

"I believe New Zealand has been very complacent with conservation. We are not a nation of eco-warriors any more ... activism used to be quite acceptable. New Zealand is so far behind much of Europe for activism.

"We used to be very good at protesting in the past – women's rights, Springboks and the Rainbow Warrior – but I believe people are afraid to stand up now. It's that fear of failure. What happens if you organise a protest and no one turns up? We need to get out of that mindset."

Mr Bethune was released from a Japanese prison in July, having received a two-year prison sentence suspended for five years after boarding Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru II in February.

"I got such a bad rap in New Zealand for what I did. There are only two places in the world where I get bad media and that is New Zealand and Japan. It is disappointing when the country you are from, and its media, sets you up like that.

"But it comes with the territory. You stick your head up far enough and people like to take pot shots at you."

* Ceana Priest is a Wintec journalism student

- © Fairfax NZ News