Report on banner drop in wellington

Here's a personal account from this morning's banner drop off the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). The action was taken to draw attention to the fact that 51% of New Zealand's climate changing emissions come from agriculture. We were also drawing attention to the cruel and dirty reality involved in the farming of animals in New Zealand. We chose to target MFAT because they are promoting New Zealand dairy overseas as a clean product.

This morning at around 7.15 I and another climber hoisted ourselves up on a sign and climbed onto the awning beneath MFAT. We unfurled our ropes, double checked all our lines and began climbing the pipes running up the outside of the building. One of our lines got caught on the awning so I descended a few metres and pulled the line free. After this it was a slow task inching ourselves up the pole remaining attatched to the pole at all times for safety.

After reaching the planned height we carefully unfurled the banner and tied it off at the top corners. After descending a few meters we pulled a cable and the banner unfurled in one go.

After setting up a chair to sit in it was simply a matter of hanging there, answering calls from the media and waiting until it was time to come down.

At around 10.30 about 100 protesters who had been at the stock exchange showed up. Amongst the protesters was an amazing radical cheerleading squad which performed a full range of chants for us, a mini samba band and a wide range of banners and placards. This was a huge boost to our morale and both I and the other climber had ear to ear grins. This was cut short when cops formed a line and without warning and whilst yelling "move, move" pushed the protesters back off the road and onto the sidewalk. Watching this from our height and whilst powerless to do anything was a very surreal experience.

After being on the building for around four hours we packed up our banner and descended to the awning. We passed our gear to waiting friends and climbed down to the cops who after getting our details and trespassing us let us go! 

Photos of stock exchange action to come