Well, this has been a crazy month! The Visual Petition Chile Tour Competition ended with hundreds of petitions being uploaded every hour.. Congratulations to the five winners around the world, and thanks to everyone who has given other people the chance to be part of this petition - which has now grown to over 11 THOUSAND.... wow! Scroll down to see the official announcement of the competition winners.

The other big news is that the Chile Tour has started... A group of pro-surfers, activists, musicians and artists have embarked upon a tour all over Chile, to promote the protection of whales and dolphins, and the conservation of our marine environment. Read below for more info...

A special website for the tour has been set up - www.chiletour08.com - which has almost daily updates of news and photos from the crew on the ground in Chile. Spanish speakers can also go to this blog site: http://www.surfestival.cl

After Chile the VP will continue to expand, and every opportunity to expose the tragedy of whaling and dolphin kills will give us another moment to share it's unique, and very personal message. We welcome you all to continue shooting portraits of friends, family and anyone who cares about this issue. The VP will continue to grow so long as the tragedy of cetacean slaughter continues.

The Surfers for Cetaceans crew has begun their journey around Chile in the lead-up to the International Whaling Commissing (IWC) meeting in Santiago. Dave Rastovich, Hannah Mermaid, Howie Cooke and Andy Sibley from Surfers for Cetaceans have been joined by pro surfers Joel Parkinson, Dane Ward, Chris Del Moro, Crystal Thornburg and film makers, Good Nature and Dave Homcy, and talented photographers. Together, the group will surf, protest, play music, and join with Chilean people, to protest the killing of Cetaceans.

The group of artists, activists, and celebrity surfers have been visiting surfing destinations, local schools, established environmental groups, and local councils. The shared surfing sessions, art projects and cultural exchanges is being documented by photographers and film crew, and shared via internet, print, radio and televised media.

The Visual Petition is being presented in Chile during the IWC - delegates will receive their own copy of the VP and our huge VP banners will feature as a prominent media attraction, and back drop for all interviews and public events. The VP competition winners will be joining the crew in Santiago, and will be at the forefront of the huge global movement to protect whales and dolphins.

You can follow the journey on the chiletour08.com website, where the S4C crew in Chile is uploading photos, news and blogs on an almost daily basis.. so stay tuned! Spanish speakers can also visit the blog site www.surfestival.cl

5 people around the world are now packing their bags to go to Chile for the week of the IWC meeting in Santiago! There were some incredible efforts... Paula and Tracey from Australia both uploaded more than 1000 petitions each.. which is a lot of hard work as many of you would know.. hopefully they had a lot of fun also!

So here are the competition winners...

Paula Steinbach from Australia - 1357 petitions
Inês Schlingensiepen from Portugal - 636 petitions
Mandy Lancellas from South Africa - 622 petitions
Kevin Muir from USA - 550 petitions
Ahmed Perez from Venezuela - 107 petitions

Congratulations everyone!

You can see the winners on the competition page, and follow their journey on the chiletour08.com website.

We also wanted to make a special mention of those people who put in some awesome efforts in the competition..

Tracey Darsana from Byron Bay had 1221 petitions.. and probably met every person in the shire! In fact, it's hard to find someone in Byron who has not heard of the visual petition! Thanks Tracey.. you're awesome!

Kylie Herd from Australia also made a tremendous effort.. 940 petitions and some great shots taken on the Sea Shepherd's Farley Mowat.

Peggy Oki from the USA submitted 515 petitions.. and it was a very close race with Kevin Muir. Peggy started the Oragami Whales Project which has created the 'Curtain of 30,000 Oragami Whales' - hand made by people from all walks of life in support of our ocean friends... so cool! Check out the project at http://www.peggy-oki.com/cu_origami.html

George Jiri Karbus from the Czech Republic uploaded 616 petitions... and we've nominated his petition photo as photo of the month.. check it out below.

Thanks to everyone who has made the visual petition what it is... it has been incredibly heartwarming to see all of the support flow in... In fact, when the first Visual Petition Banner was rolled out... Rasta almost cried! (shhh... don't tell him I said that!)

A brand new website has just been launched - peaceinthewater.com. Andy and Jasmine from Surfers for Cetaceans have helped to put together this great site which shares the remarkable beauty of our ocean cetaceans through a 3 minute video experience.

Peace in the Water invites everyone to join in the global prayer which is happening during the whole month of June, and especially on the 20th of June, which is at the beginning of the IWC meeting in Santiago. Let's all hope and pray they decide to end the killing... and finally bring peace to the water.

On 14 June 2008, Australia is celebrating National Whale Day, to recognise Australia’s love of whales and the marine environment.

In Byron people are invited to participate in National Whale Day on Saturday 14th  starting at 11-am  at Little Watagoes to greet the whales then move to Byron Bay Peace Pole at 12 pm till the sunset ceremony. There will be music, choirs, talks and  sand modelling. At 4 pm we will make the shape of a giant whale on the beach to send a message to the world  and the up coming International Whaling Commission that the worlds oceans should be a sanctuary where all whales and dolphins should be able to swim free. This will be followed by a sunset ceremony and Prayer for the whales.

After that at 5-30 pm Dean Jefferys will be presenting 2 of his new whale films in the Byron Surf club. One film is of a recent protest at the Japanese Consulate in Brisbane and the Boycott Japanese products campaign.

Greenpeace has released the results of a four-month undercover investigation, which is growing into the biggest scandal to ever hit the whaling industry in Japan. It made the front page of one of Japan's most influential newspapers in Japan. Greenpeace presented evidence in Tokyo of decades-old, widespread embezzlement of whale meat occuring under the noses of the public officials who run the whaling programme.

The best cuts of whale meat, used to make whale bacon, are smuggled into crew cabins, preserved in salt, and then shipped home in boxes marked "cardboard" or "salted stuff" to be sold on the black market. Greenpeace intercepted one such box, worth up to US$3,000, and presented it to the Tokyo Prosecutor's office as evidence this morning.

Greenpeace have evidence that more than a ton of such whale meat was snuck from the whaling ship this year. One of their informants claims to have heard a crew member boast of building a house on the proceeds from his illegal take.

This information was taken from the Greenpeace website.. Read more

George Jiri Karbus, who has uploaded 616 petitions, sent in this amazing photo for his petition.. What a great shot.. George you must let us know where it was taken!

If you have any great photos of whales or dolphins, you can send them to Chip from Peace in the Water (info@peaceinthewater.com). He is collecting photos from all over the world for his photo gallery.

If you wish to nominate a photo of the month, please send the number of your nominated photo to: info@visualpetition.com and the reason why you think this photo should be nominated.