To kick off the year, in January, we chased Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean for two weeks, saving over 100 whales.
In February, we were thrilled to welcome to Australia the first shipment of ecotimber from Lake Murray, Papua New Guinea. For three years Greenpeace has worked with forest communities to set up small scale ecoforestry ventures.
The South Australian government agreed to keep its genetically engineered (GE) food crop ban in place, following our intense lobbying and public awareness drives. The West Australian government also extended its ban on GE crops by a further 4 years.
More than 131,000 Australians signed our anti-whaling petition. Skye Bortoli, 15, from Teens Against Whaling, presented it to Japanese authorities in Tokyo. Immediately afterwards, the opposition Japanese Democratic Party (DPJ) called a committee meeting on whaling.
In March, 90% of Australians told a Newspoll survey they want equal or more public money spent on renewables as fossil fuels. Later, 30,000 Australians signed a Greenpeace petition demanding the government stop using our taxes to fuel climate change.
In May, a Greenpeace investigation revealed evidence of a whale meat embezzlement ring involving crew of the Japanese whaling ship, Nisshin Maru. Sources inside the whaling industry report that, for the first time, the taxpayer-funded whaling fleet will not be 100% Japanese-crewed, as many crew members resigned following our exposure of the embezzlement.
Eight Pacific Island countries took the most significant action ever to combat overfishing. A new agreement bans foreign fishing vessels (licensed to fish in their waters) from fishing in two regions of the Pacific Commons adjacent to them. It's exactly what Greenpeace has been pushing for since 2005!
Over 170 of Australia’s most respected chefs signed their names to our Chefs Charter opposing genetically engineered (GE) food. Then 10 leading scientists endorsed our report Eating in the Dark, calling for GE food labelling and an urgent review of the safety assessment regime for GE food.
Greenpeace provided hope for the climate with the release of our groundbreaking Energy [R]evolution Scenario report. It shows how Australia can get 40% of our energy needs from clean sources like solar and wind, with protection from rising fuels costs and tens of thousands of new jobs. We made sure every relevant government department received a copy!
From July to August, our Energy [R]evolution tour covered 2300 kilometres, creating a vision for a coal-free energy future for Australia. We blockaded some of Australia’s most polluting coal-fired power stations and painted messages on export coal ships. We welcomed a huge victory for the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef, with a 20-year moratorium on all new shale oil projects showing the power of grassroots campaigns. Watch the tour video
In August, nutritionist Rosemary Stanton launched our Right To Know petition for better labelling of GE food. More than 21,000 Australians have so far signed the petition.
Our Forests for Climate tour showed how rampant deforestation in the Paradise Forests contributes to climate change. In Papua New Guinea, Greenpeace activists stopped a logging cargo ship for three days, forcing a review of the logging agreement in PNG. We documented a heavily logged area of PNG, detailing the extent of destruction and the impact on local people.
Following intense lobbying, Greenpeace welcomed the deflagging of the whaling fleet's refuelling and cargo ship, Oriental Bluebird, in October. Without a replacement vessel the whaling fleet can only take half the intended quota of 1000 whales. Then, in November, one of Japan's biggest newspapers reported a 20 per cent reduction in the number of whales targeted in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary hunt this year - the first reduction since 1987.
In late November, as Australians began thinking of their Christmas dinners, we launched the ‘canola’ edition of the Greenpeace True Food Guide. Because Australia’s labelling laws don’t require labelling of all foods containing GE, the True Food Guide is the only way to avoid eating GE food. To date, over 165,000 copies have been distributed (not including downloads from the True Food website).
Around International Human Rights Day in December, we joined Greenpeace offices around the world to draw attention to the charges against our whales campaigners, the Tokyo Two, who exposed corruption in the whaling industry. We created a huge sand sculpture of a fin whale on Bondi Beach and asked the Japanese government to put whaling on trial instead. View the timelapse video
