Rémi Parmentier (Paris 1957) has been fighting against the tide as an ocean activist for half a century and this week he is in Nice as a co-facilitator and mobilizer of civil society at the UN summit on the seas (UNOC3).
His environmental baptism came at the age of 17 with Friends of the Earth, but he is best known for being one of the founding members of Greenpeace International and a crew member of the legendary Rainbow Warrior. For 15 years, he led the campaign to ban nuclear dumping at sea and actively participated in the creation of the Global Ocean Commission.
At the Paris Climate Summit (COP21), he established the urgent link with climate change through the Because the Ocean initiative. Aboard the Varda Group, he has expanded his scope by advising governments such as the Spanish government and some time ago decided to drop anchor in Madrid, a sailor on land. During his time in Nice, he gave a boost to his campaign Let's be Nice to the ocean, embarked on his new mission: instilling in leaders the "principle of protection" and convincing them to create Ministries of the Oceans.