Actions by Greenpeace
From Ekopedia
Greenpeace uses direct action to attract attention to particular environmental problems. For example, activists place themselves between the whaler's harpoon and their prey, or invade nuclear facilities dressed as barrels of radioactive waste. Other initiatives include the development of a fuel-efficient car, the SmILE.
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[edit] Some of Greenpeace's most notable successes
The end of the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons A (purportedly) permanent moratorium on international commercial whaling The declaration of Antarctica as a global park, making the entire continent off-limits to commercial exploitation and pollution, and only permiting limited scientific research. World Park Base was established in Antarctica, and ran for five years, from 1987 through 1992.
[edit] Moruroa Atoll and the Vega
In May 1972, the newly-formed Greenpeace Foundation put out a call to sympathetic skippers (the "Sympathetic Skippers" are a group similar to Greenpeace) to help them protest against the French Government's atmospheric nuclear tests at the Pacific atoll of Moruroa. A response came from David McTaggart, a Canadian expatriate and former entrepreneur based in New Zealand. McTaggart, a champion badminton player in his youth, sold his business interests and relocated to the South Pacific following a gas explosion which seriously wounded an employee at one of his ski-lodges. Outraged that any government could claim right over substantial areas of international waters, McTaggart offered his yacht, the Vega, to the cause, and set about assembling a crew.
Later In 1972, McTaggart sailed the Vega into the exclusion zone around Moruroa, only to have his vessel be harassed and eventually collide with a French Naval vessal. Later, whilst awaiting the Vega to be made seaworthy - the Navy released to the media photographs of McTaggart dining with senior navy officers at Moruroa, which suggested a degree of civility between the opposing parties. When he repeated the protest the following year, French sailors boarded the Vega and brutally beat McTaggart, a different picture now emerged with photographs of McTaggart's beating, smuggled off the yacht by crew member Anne-Marie Horne appearing in the media.
The campaign against French nuclear testing remained after the French government announced a halt to atmospheric testing, only to begin testing underground. Greenpeace would continue to campaign against testing in the Pacific until the French completed their testing programme in 1995.
[edit] Rainbow Warrior and French bombing
Greenpeace's continued protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa atoll prompted the government of France to order the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1985.
The Warrior had sailed from the North Pacific, where it assisted the evacuation of the inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who continued to suffer health effects attributed to the fallout from American nuclear testing during the 1950s and 1960s . Greenpeace plans envisaged the ship leading a flotilla of vessels protesting against imminent nuclear tests at Moruroa.
On the evening of July 10, 1985, frogmen attached two bombs to the hull of the ship. The first bomb detonated at 11:38, closely followed by the second explosion, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira, who had come back to collect his belongings.
The New Zealand police traced the bombing to Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, members of the French Secret Service posing as a Swiss honeymoon couple. The police arrested Mafart and Prieur, but attempts on the part of New Zealand authorities to secure the extradition of their suspected accomplices from Australia, and later from France, failed.
The French Government initially denied any involvement in the bombing, but mounting pressure from the French and international media led to the admission, on September 22, that the French secret service had ordered the bombing. Investigations subsequent to the bombing also revealed that Christine Cabon, a French secret service agent, had infiltrated the Auckland office of Greenpeace New Zealand, posing as a volunteer in order to gather information on the Moruroa campaign and the Rainbow Warrior’s movements.{
In 1987, the French Government agreed to pay New Zealand compensation of NZ$13 million and formally apologised for the bombing. The original Rainbow Warrior, too damaged to repair, was cleaned and scuttled in Matauri Bay, where it serves as an artificial reef and popular diving destination.
A 2005 publication in French newspaper Le Monde made clear that it was by order of the French president, François Mitterrand himself, that the attack took place.
[edit] Actions against whaling
When Paul Spong, a New Zealand neuroscientist hired by the Vancouver Aquarium to study the behaviour of whales in captivity, contacted Robert Hunter, the 'Save the Whales' campaign which resulted took place initially under the banner of Project Ahab, due to Irving Stowe's resistance to broadening Greenpeace's scope beyond opposition to nuclear weapons.
Stowe's death in 1974 effectively ended this deadlock, and a re-chartered Phyllis Cormack steamed from Vancouver to meet the Soviet whaling fleet off the Californian coast in the spring of 1975. Thanks to the guidance of a primitive radio direction-finder and some fortuitous navigation by musician Mel Gregory, who steered towards the moon rather than following a compass, the Cormack encountered the whaling fleet on June 26, consisting of the mothership "Vostok" and twelve 150-foot boats.
The crew used fast Zodiac inflatables to position themselves between the harpoon of the catcher ship ‘’Vlastny’’ and a fleeing whale. Television broadcasts around the world showed film footage of the ‘’Vlastny’’ firing a harpoon over the heads of Greenpeace activists, highlighting the plight of the whales to the world's public in the closing days of the International Whaling Commission's 1975 conference in London, England.
The Greenpeace V expedition crewmembers included: Skipper John C. Cormack, Robert Hunter, George Korotva, Patrick Moore, Paul Watson, David "Walrus Oakenbough" Garrick, Rex Weyler, Melville Gregory, Will Jackson, Don "Iron Buffalo" Franks, Fred Easton, Carlie Trueman, Taeko Miwa, Ron Precious, Myron MacDonald, Leigh Wilkes, Carol Bryan, Michael Chechik. The sister vessel, the Vega (of Moruroa fame), dubbed "Greenpeace VI," was skippered by Jacques Longini, and crewed by Matt Herron, Ramon Falkowski and John Cotter.
This expedition was the most significant of all Greenpeace actions because it provided the "tipping point" for Greenpeace as it morphed almost overnight from provincial grassroots outfit to international "eco-power." From that time on, the name Greenpeace was synonymous with environmental concern and action—even craziness. While it was used by naysayers pejoratively, it stood as an undeniable icon for positive action in defense of the planet.
Greenpeace vessels continue to patrol various areas of the world's oceans, attempting to interfere with whaling ships. The whaling ships of Japan in the Southern Ocean are a particularly frequent target. The Greenpeace website often releases video footage of their encounters with whaling ships.
[edit] Kleenex and the destruction of ancient forests
In November 2004, Greenpeace launched a campaign against the Kimberly-Clark Corporation because its tissue products, including the popular Kleenex brand, have been linked to the destruction of ancient Boreal forest in Canada. The environmental organisation charges that Kimberly-Clark uses more than 3.1 million tonnes of virgin pulp from forests to produce its tissue products [1]. The corporation is also a purchaser of pulp from clearcutting operations in ancient forests in Ontario and Alberta, Canada. The forests have existed for over 10,000 years, since the last ice age, and are home to threatened wildlife such as woodland caribou and wolverine.
As part of its international "Kleercut" campaign, Greenpeace has been educating consumers about the links between Kleenex tissue products and ancient forests, moving shareholders to put pressure on Kimberly-Clark and motivating customers to switch to more environmentally-friendly tissue product manufacturers. As of January 2006 more than 700 'forest friendly' businesses took pledges to end their purchase of Kimberly-Clark products. In December 2006, Rice University announced it was joining American University in ending its purchasing contract with the company.
[edit] Soya and destruction of Amazon rainforest
In 2003, agri-business giant Cargill completed a port for processing soya in Santarém in the Amazon region of Brazil. The port dramatically increased soya production in the area due to the proximity of easy transport and processing facilities. In late 2003 Greenpeace launched a campaign claiming the new port sped up deforestation of local rain forest as farmers have cleared land to make way for crops. Although Cargill complied with state legislation, they failed to comply with a federal law requiring an Environmental Impact Statement. Instead they contested in court that they did not need to follow the law.
Cargill responded to criticisms of the port by focusing on the need for economic development for the local province, one of the poorest in Brazil. They claimed that "extreme measures" such as closing the port were not necessary because "Soy occupies less than 0.6 percent of the land in the Amazon biome today." They also pointed to their partnership with The Nature Conservancy to encourage farmers around Santarém to comply with Brazilian law that requires 80% of forest to be left intact in forest areas.
In April of 2006, Greenpeace released another report criticising Cargill for its alleged role in deforestation of the Amazon. The report traced animal feed made from Amazonian soya to European food retailers who bought chicken and other meat raised on the feed. Greenpeace took its campaign to these major food retailers.
In July of 2006, Greenpeace won agreement from McDonalds along with UK-retailers Asda, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer to stop buying meat raised on Amazonian soya. These retailers in turn put pressure on Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, the Amaggi group and Dreyfus to provide soya feed not grown on land recently cleared of rainforest. Within days, these five agribusiness giants enacted a two-year moratorium on the purchase of soybeans from newly deforested land. Greenpeace continues to work for an extension of the moratorium to provide greater protection for the Amazonian rainforest.
