Our campaigns

We have three main campaigns in Africa: tackling climate change, stopping the looting of the continent’s fish and saving the forests.

Tackling climate change 

Let’s not beat about the bush. All these threats are serious, but climate change might just be the biggest threat mankind has ever faced, particularly in Africa. Africans aren’t responsible for climate change; the industrial nations are the worst offenders. But it is Africans who will pay the steepest price.

The energy sector is the worst offender, creating almost 66 percent of all greenhouse gases. Yet in South Africa, where the government is faced with a major energy supply problem, their answer seems to be the building of more coal-fired energy stations, a 'solution' which only serves to worsen the problem.

Greenpeace is locked in a desperate struggle to change people’s minds, especially the minds of the country’s leaders. We need to change the view that nuclear power is a cheap and effective solution to our energy problems -- it's not. We want to start a revolution in the thinking around energy, promoting the use of renewable energy sources, and saving the continent and creating jobs in the process.

Find out more about the climate campaign

 

Saving the forests

In central Africa, the rainforests in the Congo Basin provide the livelihood for 40 million people. These communities depend on the forests for their food, their medicines, as well as the materials used to build their homes. Additionally, this region is home to 270 species of mammals, among them the endangered gorillas, Bonobo and chimpanzees. The okapi and forest elephant are just two of the 39 species of animals found only here. These forests aren’t being protected for the people living here, they’re being destroyed.

Now Greenpeace is working locally and internationally to protect this special environment before it is too late. Called 'Forests for Climate', the initiative will teach the world how it can make financial sense to leave the forests as they are, rather than chopping them up forever.

Find out more about the forest campaign

 

Protecting our oceans and their ressources

Off the west coast of Africa, the battleground is underwater. African governments have been selling the right to fish in their waters to hi-tech, foreign industrial fleets. The hope is that increased fish production will help local economies by providing more jobs, more money and more food.

However, in the almost total absence of monitoring, control, surveillance and management plans, too many fish are taken from African waters.

Over-fishing is emptying the seas faster than nature can replenish it, threatening the food security of hundreds of millions of people.

Greenpeace is campaigning to stop the theft of fish from African seas and to develop viable alternatives to overfishing, that will help develop a sustainable, locally operated and financed fishing industry. 

Find out more about the oceans campaign

 

Get involved with our campaigns today.

The latest updates

 

What to expect during COP22 - our expectations for the results

Blog entry by Jennifer Morgan | November 7, 2016

With the Paris Agreement coming into force the week before this big  UN climate meeting , the timing couldn’t be better for swiftly moving forward. Paris accelerates the transition to the zero carbon economy that is already...

The inevitable transformation - why swift action is needed to stay below 1.5

Blog entry by Jennifer Morgan | November 7, 2016

Last year, 197 countries adopted the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Today (November 4th) it comes into force, in one of the fastest ratifications of any international agreement. In 2015 at COP21 in Paris,...

Whale Fail – no new sanctuary in the South Atlantic (again).

Blog entry by Willie Mackenzie | October 25, 2016

All rights reserved . Credit: Twitter Bad news from the 2016 International Whaling Commission meeting – as the first significant vote was another disappointment for whales and supporters of conservation.

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