Greenpeace origins date back to Vancouver in 1970. The name comes from a slogan used during protests against the United States nuclear testing in 1969.
The movement had come together with the objective of stopping a U.S. nuclear bomb test in Amchitka, Alaska. These were underground tests.
Jim and Marie Bohlen led this protest. They had a boat named the ‘Phyllis Cormack’ which was a fishing vessel owned by John Cormack of Vancouver. They changed the name to ‘Greenpeace 1’. The second protest was called Greenpeace 2. The nuclear tests were not stopped but the way was paved for the future.
Irving Stowe was the father of Greenpeace and introduced the concepts of non-violence and bearing witness. There is quite a list of people who take the credit for Greenpeace success so I’ll write about a few who interest me most.
Captain Paul Watson was first director in the early days of Greenpeace and led the Harp Seal campaign. This dealt with the culling of young seals. He also founded Sea Shepherd and sank the pirate whaler ‘Sierra’ in 1979.
In 1972 a yacht called ‘Vega’ owned by David McTaggart was renamed ‘Greenpeace 3’ and it sailed in an anti-nuclear protest into French Polynesia to disrupt French atmospheric nuclear testing.
Rolf Heimann sailed out via New Zealand, which is a nuclear-free zone in a ship called ‘Greenpeace 4’ but arrived too late. The French military conducted more than 200 nuclear tests over a thirty-year period ending in 1996.
In 1974 an anti-whaling campaign took place as Soviet whalers arrived off California. In 1976 a campaign was launched against the killing and skinning of foxes in Newfoundland for the high-fashion fur trade, targeting Norwegian ships who took part in it. Greenpeace also used helicopters to move people and supplies.
Brigit Bardot is one of Greenpeace’s loyal followers when it comes to the fur trade and has helped a lot over the years. In the same year a boat called the ‘James Bay’ took the title of ‘Greenpeace 7’ and disrupted the Soviets again. It was now also clear that the whales needed protection from Japenese harpooners and the movement reacted.
By the late 1970s more than 20 groups across North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia had adopted the name Greenpeace and the style of protest was described as David and Goliath on the high seas, David being unfortunately the Greenpeace Vessels. It was time for Greenpeace to take to the courts and have a say in a lot of human rights issues there too.
On October 14 1979 Greenpeace International came into existence. It was a global organization and this meant that the local offices would contribute a percentage of their income to the movement. 6000 Greenpeace activists reside in the UK.
One of the first things the new organization did was to produce a vessel, famously known as the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ for £40,000. Between 1978 and 1985 the crew members protested against the ocean dumping of radioactive waste, the grey seal hunt in Orkney and nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Sadly the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was sunk by the French when it lay in a New Zealand harbour. The order to do this was given by Mitterand himself. A photographer and Greenpeace activist, Fernando Pereira, was killed during the bombing.
A replacement for the ‘Rainbow Warrior’, also called the ‘Rainbow Warrior’, remains in service today as the flagship for the Greenpeace fleet. The latest news of the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was in 2005 when it ran aground and damaged a reef in the Philippines.
The other ships in the fleet are the ‘Arctic Sunrise’, ‘Esperanza’, ‘Argus’ and the ‘Beluga 2’. Today, Japanese whalers have said that out of 985 whales being the quota, only half have been caught due to Greenpeace. The movement is making a difference.
For further information www.greanpeace.org
Above: One of Greenpeace’s staged protests and below, the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ after being sunk in Auckland by a French government agent.