Greenpeace

Logo of Greenpeace
Global map of Greenpeace office locations
Formation	1969; 55 years ago (1969) – 1972 (1972) (see article) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Type	International NGO
Purpose	Environmentalism, peace
Headquarters	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Region served	Worldwide
Executive Director	Mads Christensen
Main organ	Board of directors, elected by the Annual General Meeting
Budget	€ 103.735 million (2022)
Staff	3,476 (2022)
Volunteers	34,365+ (2022)
Website	greenpeace.org
Formerly called	Don't Make a Wave Committee (1969–1972)
[1][2]

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Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity"^[3] and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, anti-war^[4] and anti-nuclear issues.^[5] It uses direct action, advocacy, research, and ecotage^[6] to achieve its goals.

The network comprises 26 independent national/regional organisations in over 55 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific, as well as a coordinating body, Greenpeace International, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.^[7]

The global network does not accept funding from governments, corporations, or political parties, relying on three million individual supporters and foundation grants.^[8][9] Greenpeace has a general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council^[10] and is a founding member^[11] of the INGO Accountability Charter, an international non-governmental organization that intends to foster accountability and transparency of non-governmental organizations.

Greenpeace is known for its nonviolent direct actions and has been described as one of the most visible environmental organizations in the world.^[12] It has raised environmental issues to public knowledge,^[13][14][15] and influenced both the private and the public sector.^[16][17] The organization has received criticism; it was the subject of an open letter from more than 100 Nobel laureates urging Greenpeace to end its campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMOs).^[18] The organization's direct actions have sparked legal actions against Greenpeace activists,^[19] such as fines and suspended sentences for destroying a test plot of genetically modified wheat^[20][21][22] and, according to the Peruvian Government, damaging the Nazca Lines, a UN World Heritage site.^[23]

History

Origins

In the late 1960s, the U.S. had planned its Cannikin underground nuclear weapon test in the tectonically unstable island of Amchitka in Alaska; the plans raised some concerns of the test triggering earthquakes and causing a tsunami. Some 7,000^[24] people blocked the Peace Arch Border Crossing between British Columbia and Washington,^[25] carrying signs reading "Don't Make A Wave. It's Your Fault If Our Fault Goes".^[26] and "Stop My Ark's Not Finished". The protests did not stop the U.S. from detonating the bomb.^[26]

While no earthquake or tsunami followed the test, the opposition grew when the U.S. announced they would detonate a bomb five times more powerful than the first one. Among the opponents were Jim Bohlen, a veteran who had served in the U.S. Navy, and Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, who had recently become Quakers. They were frustrated by the lack of action by the Sierra Club Canada, of which they were members. From Irving Stowe, Jim Bohlen learned of a form of passive resistance, "bearing witness", where objectionable activity is protested simply by mere presence.^[26] Jim Bohlen's wife Marie came up with the idea to sail to Amchitka, inspired by the anti-nuclear voyages of Albert Bigelow in 1958. The idea ended up in the press and was linked to The Sierra Club.^[26] The Sierra Club did not like this connection and in 1970 the Don't Make a Wave Committee was established for the protest. Early meetings were held in the Shaughnessy home of Robert Hunter and his wife Bobbi Hunter. Subsequently, the Stowe home at 2775 Courtenay Street in Vancouver became the headquarters.^[27] As Rex Weyler put it in his chronology, Greenpeace, in 1969, Irving and Dorothy Stowe's "quiet home on Courtenay Street would soon become a hub of monumental, global significance". Some of the first Greenpeace meetings were held there. The first office was opened in a backroom, storefront on Cypress and West Broadway southeast corner in Kitsilano, Vancouver.^[28] Within half a year Greenpeace moved in to share the upstairs office space with The Society Promoting Environmental Conservation on the second floor at 2007, 4th Ave. and Maple in Kitsilano.^[29]

Irving Stowe arranged a benefit concert (supported by Joan Baez) that took place on 16 October 1970 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.^[30] The concert created the financial basis for the first Greenpeace campaign.^[31] Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace was published by Greenpeace in November 2009 on CD and is also available as an mp3 download via the Amchitka concert website. Using the money raised with the concert, the Don't Make a Wave Committee chartered a ship, the Phyllis Cormack owned and sailed by John Cormack. The ship was renamed Greenpeace for the protest after a term coined by activist Bill Darnell.^[26] The complete crew included: Captain John Cormack (the boat's owner), Jim Bohlen, Bill Darnell, Patrick Moore, Dr Lyle Thurston, Dave Birmingham, Terry A. Simmons, Richard Fineberg, Robert Hunter (journalist), Ben Metcalfe (journalist), Bob Cummings (journalist) and Bob Keziere (photographer).^[32]

On 15 September 1971, the ship sailed towards Amchitka and faced the U.S. Coast Guard ship Confidence^[26] which forced the activists to turn back. Because of this and the increasingly bad weather the crew decided to return to Canada only to find out that the news about their journey and reported support from the crew of the Confidence had generated sympathy for their protest.^[26] After this Greenpeace tried to navigate to the test site with other vessels, until the U.S. detonated the bomb.^[26] The nuclear test was criticized, and the U.S. decided not to continue with their test plans at Amchitka.

Founders and founding time of Greenpeace

External videos
The Early Roots of Greenpeace: Bodies On The Line – a 1976 public broadcasting documentary provides an overview of the early founders and campaigns of the organization. (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, full episode)

Environmental historian Frank Zelko dates the formation of the "Don't Make a Wave Committee" to 1969 and, according to Jim Bohlen, the group adopted the name "Don't Make a Wave Committee" on 28 November 1969.^[33] According to the Greenpeace web site, The Don't Make a Wave Committee was established in 1970.^[34] The certificate of incorporation of The Don't Make a Wave Committee dates the incorporation to the fifth of October, 1970.^[35] Researcher Vanessa Timmer dates the official incorporation to 1971.^[36] Greenpeace itself calls the protest voyage of 1971 as "the beginning".^[37] According to Patrick Moore, who was an early member and has since mutually distanced himself from Greenpeace, and Rex Weyler, the name of "The Don't Make a Wave Committee" was officially changed to Greenpeace Foundation in 1972.^[35][38]

Vanessa Timmer has referred to the early members as "an unlikely group of loosely organized protestors".^[36] Frank Zelko has commented that "unlike Friends of the Earth, for example, which sprung fully formed from the forehead of David Brower, Greenpeace developed in a more evolutionary manner. There was no single founder".^[39] Greenpeace itself says on its web page that "there's a joke that in any bar in Vancouver, British Columbia, you can sit down next to someone who claims to have founded Greenpeace. In fact, there was no single founder: name, idea, spirit and tactics can all be said to have separate lineages".^[34] Patrick Moore has said that "the truth is that Greenpeace was always a work in progress, not something definitively founded like a country or a company. Therefore there are a few shades of gray about who might lay claim to being a founder of Greenpeace."^[35] Early Greenpeace director Rex Weyler says on his homepage that the insiders of Greenpeace have debated about the founders since the mid-1970s.^[40]

The current Greenpeace web site lists the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee as Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and Robert Hunter.^[34] According to both Patrick Moore and an interview with Dorothy Stowe, Dorothy Metcalfe, Jim Bohlen and Robert Hunter, the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee were Paul Cote, Irving and Dorothy Stowe and Jim and Marie Bohlen.^[35][41]

Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society maintains that he also was one of the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee and Greenpeace.^[42] Greenpeace has stated that Watson was an influential early member, but not one of the founders of Greenpeace.^[43] Watson has since accused Greenpeace of rewriting their history.^[42]

Because Patrick Moore was among the crew of the first protest voyage, Moore also considers himself one of the founders. Greenpeace claims that although Moore was a significant early member, he was not among the founders of Greenpeace.^[41][44]

After Amchitka

After the office in the Stowe home, (and after the first concert fund-raiser) Greenpeace functions moved to other private homes and held public meetings weekly on Wednesday nights at the Kitsilano Neighborhood House before settling, in the autumn of 1974, in a small office shared with the SPEC environmental group at 2007 West 4th at Maple in Kitsilano. When the nuclear tests at Amchitka were over, Greenpeace moved its focus to the French atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. The young organization needed help for their protests and were contacted by David McTaggart, a former businessman living in New Zealand. In 1972 the yacht Vega, a 12.5-metre (41 ft) ketch owned by David McTaggart, was renamed Greenpeace III and sailed in an anti-nuclear protest into the exclusion zone at Moruroa to attempt to disrupt French nuclear testing. This voyage was sponsored and organized by the New Zealand branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.^[45] The French Navy tried to stop the protest in several ways, including assaulting David McTaggart. McTaggart was supposedly beaten to the point that he lost sight in one of his eyes. However, one of McTaggart's crew members photographed the incident and went public. After the assault was publicized, France announced it would stop the atmospheric nuclear tests.^[26]

In the mid-1970s some Greenpeace members started an independent campaign, Project Ahab, against commercial whaling, since Irving Stowe was against Greenpeace focusing on other issues than nuclear weapons.^[46] After Irving Stowe died in 1975, the Phyllis Cormack sailed from Vancouver to face Soviet whalers on the coast of California. Greenpeace activists disrupted the whaling by placing themselves between the harpoons and the whales, and footage of the protests spread across the world. Later in the 1970s, the organization widened its focus to include toxic waste and commercial seal hunting.^[26]

The "Greenpeace Declaration of Interdependence" was published by Greenpeace in the Greenpeace Chronicles (Winter 1976–77). This declaration was a condensation of a number of ecological manifestos Bob Hunter had written over the years.

Organizational development

Greenpeace evolved from a group of Canadian and American protesters into a less conservative group of environmentalists who were more reflective of the counterculture and hippie youth movements of the 1960s and 1970s.^[47] The social and cultural background from which Greenpeace emerged heralded a period of de-conditioning away from Old World antecedents and sought to develop new codes of social, environmental and political behavior.^[48][49] Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Greenpeace_Canada
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