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Greenpeace

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Greenpeace is an international environmental organization founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1971. It is known for its campaigns to stop atmospheric and underground nuclear testing as well as to bring an end to high seas whaling. In later years, the focus of the organization turned to other environmental issues, including bottom trawling, global warming, ancient forest destruction, nuclear power, and genetic engineering. Greenpeace has national and regional offices in 41 countries worldwide, all of which are affiliated to the Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International. The global organisation receives its income through the individual contributions of an estimated 2.8 million financial supporters, as well as from grants from charitable foundations, but does not accept funding from governments or corporations.


Greenpeace's official mission statement describes the organisation and its aims thus:

Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organisation which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions for a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace's goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity.

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[edit] Early history

The origins of Greenpeace lie in the formation of the Don't Make A Wave Committee by an assortment of Canadian and American expatriate peace activists in Vancouver in 1970. Taking its name from a slogan used during protests against United States nuclear testing in late 1969, the Committee came together with the objective of stopping a second underground nuclear bomb test codenamed Cannikin by the United States military beneath the island of Amchitka, Alaska. The first ship expedition was called the Greenpeace I; the second relief expedition was nicknamed Greenpeace Too! [1]. The test was not stopped, but the organisation of the committee laid the groundwork for Greenpeace's later activities.

Bill Darnell has received the credit for combining the words ‘green’ and ‘peace’, thereby giving the organisation its future name.

On 4 May 1972, following Dorothy Stowe's departure from the chairmanship of the Don't Make A Wave Committee, the fledgling environmental group officially changed its name to the "Greenpeace Foundation".

By the late 1970s, spurred by the global reach of what journalist Robert Hunter called "mind bombs", in which images of confrontation on the high seas converted diffuse and complex issues into considerably more media-friendly David versus Goliath-style narratives, more than 20 groups across North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia had adopted the name "Greenpeace".

In 1979, however, the original Vancouver-based Greenpeace Foundation had encountered financial difficulties, and disputes between offices over fund-raising and organisational direction split the global movement. David McTaggart lobbied the Canadian Greenpeace Foundation to accept a new structure which would bring the scattered Greenpeace offices under the auspices of a single global organisation, and on October 14 1979, Greenpeace International came into existence. Under the new structure, the local offices would contribute a percentage of their income to the international organisation, which would take responsibility for setting the overall direction of the movement.

Greenpeace's transformation from a loose international network to a global organisation enabled it to apply the full force of its resources to a small number of environmental issues deemed of global significance, owed much to McTaggart's personal vision. McTaggart summed up his approach in a 1994 memo: "No campaign should be begun without clear goals; no campaign should be begun unless there is a possibility that it can be won; no campaign should be begun unless you intend to finish it off". McTaggart's own assessment of what could and couldn't be won, and how, frequently caused controversy.

In re-shaping Greenpeace as a centrally coordinated, hierarchical organisation, McTaggart went against the anti-authoritarian ethos that prevailed in other environmental organisations that came of age in the 1970s. While this pragmatic structure granted Greenpeace the persistence and narrow focus necessary to match forces with government and industry, it would lead to the recurrent criticism that Greenpeace had adopted the same methods of governance as its chief foes — the multinational corporations. Its current Executive Director is Gerd Leipold. [2]

For smaller actions, and continuous local promotion and activism, Greenpeace has networks of active supporters that coordinate their efforts through national offices. The United Kingdom has some 6,000 Greenpeace activists.

[edit] National offices

Greenpeace has national or regional offices in over 38 different countries, including Argentina, Greenpeace Australia Pacific [3] (Australia, Fiji, Papua New-Guinea, Solomon Islands), Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greenpeace Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), Greece, Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe (Austria, Hungary, Slovak Rep., Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia (no permanent campaign presence in the latter five states)) India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Greenpeace Mediterranean (Israel, Cypros, Lebanon, Malta, Tunisia, Turkey) Mexico, the Netherlands, Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand (New Zealand), Russia, Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand), Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

[edit] Funding

Despite its founding in North America, Greenpeace achieved much more success in Europe, where it has more members and gets most of its money.[3], The vast majority of Greenpeace's donations come from private individual members and supporters, including prominent figures such as Ted Turner.

In order to ensure its independence and impartiality, Greenpeace does not accept money from corporations, political parties, or from governments; it screens donations to ensure compliance.

[edit] Greenpeace ships

Since Greenpeace was founded, seagoing ships have played a vital role in its campaigns.

In 1978, Greenpeace launched the original Rainbow Warrior, a 40-metre, former fishing trawler named for the Cree legend that inspired early activist Robert Hunter on the first voyage to Amchitka. Greenpeace purchased the Rainbow Warrior (originally launched as the Sir William Hardy in 1955) at a cost of £40,000, and volunteers restored and refitted her over a period of four months.

First deployed to disrupt the hunt of the Icelandic whaling fleet, the Rainbow Warrior would quickly become a mainstay of Greenpeace campaigns. Between 1978 and 1985, crew members also engaged in non-violent direct action against the ocean-dumping of toxic and radioactive waste, the Grey Seal hunt in Orkney and nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Japan's Fisheries Agency has labelled Greenpeace ships as "anti-whaling vessels" and "environmental terrorists".

In 1989 Greenpeace commissioned a replacement vessel, also named the Rainbow Warrior, which remains in service today as the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet.

In 1996 the Greenpeace vessel MV Sirius was detained by Dutch police while protesting the import of genetically modified soybeans due to the violation of a temporary sailing prohibition, which was implemented because the Sirius prevented their unloading. The ship, but not the captain, was released a half hour later.

In 2005 the Rainbow Warrior II ran aground and was damaged at the Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines, while she was on a mission to "protect" the very same reef. They were fined $7,000 USD for damaging the reef and agreed to pay the fine, although they said that the Philippines government had given them outdated charts.

Along with the Rainbow Warrior the Greenpeace organisation has four other ships:

  • The MV Arctic Sunrise
  • The MV Esperanza
  • The Argos
  • The Beluga II

[edit] Activities and issues

Main article: Actions by Greenpeace

The organisation currently addresses many environmental issues with a primary focus on efforts to stop global warming and the preservation of the world's oceans and ancient forests. In addition to conventional environmental organisation methods, such as lobbying politicians and attendance at international conferences, Greenpeace is committed to nonviolent direct action.




[edit] References

  • David McTaggart with Robert Hunter, Greenpeace III: Journey into the Bomb (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1978). ISBN 0-211885-8
  • Robert Hunter, Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979). ISBN 0-03-043736-9
  • Michael King, Death of the Rainbow Warrior (Penguin Books, 1986). ISBN 0-14-009738-4
  • David Robie, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior (Philadelphia: New Society Press, 1987). ISBN 0-86571-114-3
  • Michael Brown and John May, The Greenpeace Story (1989; London and New York: Dorling Kindersley, Inc., 1991). ISBN 1-879431-02-5
  • Rex Weyler (2004), Greenpeace: an insider's account, Rodale
  • Kieran Mulvaney and Mark Warford (1996): Witness: Twenty-Five Years on the Environmental Front Line, Andre Deutsch.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.ekopedia.org/Greenpeace"
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