We were at forefront of saving the Boreal Forest, continuing to put market pressure on forest companies to protect our precious forests and pressing for the full implementation of the landmark conservation agreements for the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia.

We kept global warming front and centre with direct actions against the Alberta tar sands, and with our KYOTOplus movement to demand real action to stop the threat of catastrophic climate change.

We pressured governments to end the threat of nuclear energy.

We took on supermarkets that sell seafood that is not sustainably caught through our Oceans campaign, pushed governments to mandate labelling of genetically engineered foods and organisms and battled biotech-giant Monsanto.

To top off an exciting year, Greenpeace Canada’s actions coordinator discovered a new species on a research trip to the Bering Sea and the coordinator of our Forest campaign was named to a power list of the most influential players in the global pulp and paper industry.

 

The Boreal Forest

Our Boreal forest team maintained a high profile. They convinced a number of companies to help protect forests that have a high conservation value by moving to buy products certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard. The best example was RONA which took significant strides to develop the strongest forest products procurement policy in North America.

In June, the Grassy Narrows First Nation won a decade-long fight to protect its traditional area when AbitibiBowater announced it would stop logging in the one million hectare Whiskey Jack Forest, near Kenora. Greenpeace and other environmental groups supported the First Nation in its struggle.

Greenpeace released two scientifically significant reports:

• Turning Up the Heat: Global Warming and the Degradation of Canada’s Boreal Forest, which shows that clear-cutting increases the effects of climate change.
• Cut and Run: Kimberly-Clark's legacy of environmental devastation and social conflict in the Kenogami Forest

Finally, Greenpeace and other environmental groups were able to celebrate a victory when the Ontario government promised to protect at least 22.5 million hectares of intact Boreal Forest in the far north of the province. The courageous campaigns of First Nations communities were also instrumental in this victory. The promise by Ontario represents the single largest conservation commitment in Canadian history.

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The Great Bear Rainforest

Greenpeace continued working to ensure that the March 31, 2009 deadline to protect the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia is met by the Provincial government. We launched a Keep the Promise campaign to encourage Premier Campbell to keep his promise and to remind him that the world is watching. We also celebrated the Haida Nation’s accomplishment -- successful negotiation of an agreement with the province of B.C. that extends protection of the Great Bear Rainforest to an additional 254,000 hectares, doubling the protected area on Haida Gwaii.

Greenpeace successfully worked with three logging companies to have them voluntarily revise their plans, and ultimately commit to not log one million hectares of their tenures prior to March 31st 2009 to maintain important ecological values.

Three logging companies have undergone an assessment for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification covering a portion of their logging tenures up to one million hectares.

Greenpeace and its partners created a spatially explicit plan for maintaining over time the ecological integrity to the rainforest.

And in the lead-up to the Games in Vancouver in 2010, Greenpeace launched the website www.goodwoodwatch.ca to track the use of 'good wood' in Olympic venues.

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Global Warming

Greenpeace launched the KYOTOplus campaign, along with other environmental groups, to mobilize Canadians to demand real action on global warming from the federal government.

Thousands of Canadians joined KYOTOplus in 2008 by signing the petition.

We went to the important United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland in December with an outline for a positive role for Canada in the talks.

Canada and other countries were supposed to use the Poznan conference as a key milestone on the way to a stronger approach to stopping global warming.

Unfortunately, Canada did not play a positive role. It undermined the conference and set the process back.

Thanks to our efforts with international environmental groups, the Harper government was identified as one of the main climate villains in at the disappointing Poznan.

During the federal election campaign in October, we kept climate change on the agenda.

Greenpeace volunteers chased down candidates and got 490 to sign the KYOTOplus pledge for politicians. Not one Conservative signed. The leaders of the other four parties all signed.

Volunteers distributed tens of thousands of leaflets calling on Canadians to vote for leadership on climate change. We were part of the “anybody but Harper” movement. Staff and volunteers bird-dogged the Conservatives and Prime Minister Harper in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City.

In July, Greenpeace volunteers floated a huge balloon and banner at the meeting of provincial premiers in Quebec City calling on them to support KYOTOplus.

2009 will be a crucial year for KYOTOplus. The COUNTDOWN to COPENHAGEN will be in full swing. We need to convince the federal government to play a positive role in the historic UN climate change meeting that will take place in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

The world must decide to extend and strengthen the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen.

 

The Tar Sands

The Alberta tar sands got a lot of our attention in 2008. The production of the dirty oil of the tar sands is the largest industrial project on the planet and perhaps the biggest reason for Canada’s poor showing in Poznan. Oil companies continued to spew millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere while systematically draining Alberta rivers and chewing through the Boreal Forest. 

Greenpeace was there to bring attention to the destruction. We dropped in on Premier Stelmach at his fundraising dinner last April in Edmonton to remind him that his loyalties lie with Albertans not oil companies. 

In July, we went to Fort McMurray, the heart of the tar sands, taking direct action against tar sands giant Syncrude. We put up a massive banner that read “World’s Dirtiest Oil” along the bank of the same tailings pond where 500 ducks died last spring after landing in the toxic sludge. 

We took a humorous look at a serious situation with a spoof website,  that highlights the many tourist attractions of the tar sands---from black-sand beaches to open-pit paragliding over sour-gas updrafts.

 

No Nukes

Greenpeace kept the pressure on the McGuinty government to shut down the Pickering "B"nuclear station when it reaches the end of its operational life in 2014 instead of spending billions to rebuild.

Our 30km.ca campaign showed the danger millions of people in the Toronto area face with the operation of the Pickering nuclear station so close to an urban centre. Greenpeace activists played out a disaster scenario of a nuclear meltdown. 30km was the evacuation radius for the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Research and science were the backbone of our work on our nuclear campaign. We released two reports:

• Better Never Than Late: The climate fall-out of Ontario’s nuclear electricity plan 
• Risks of operating Candu-6 Nuclear Power Plants 

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Oceans

Last year, the Oceans campaign started strong with the re-launch of the sustainable seafood campaign targeting supermarkets that buy and sell Redlist fish, —species that are not managed sustainably. Out of Stock: Supermarkets and the Future of Seafood -- released in June -- outlined the problem.

We organized a National Day of Action, complete with series of direct actions in Loblaw supermarkets across the country. And in Toronto, Greenpeace activists draped a giant net over a Loblaw store, with a banner that read “Caught red-handed selling Redlist fish".

Greenpeace volunteers supported the campaign in force outside dozens of supermarkets across the country in the summer and the fall. As a result of their work, thousands of Canadians signed our postcards which we sent on to supermarkets to let them know people want them to stop selling Redlist fish.

We continue to protect killer whales. We are participating in a lawsuit against the Canadian government for its failure to protect these magnificent animals on the west coast.

We played a big role in the development of Greenpeace’s report on global aquaculture and promoted the report in Canada. It outlines how fish farming is damaging marine and freshwater ecosystems.

Greenpeace Canada supported our colleagues in Japan, who were arrested for exposing a stolen whale-meat scandal. These brave activists now face up to 10 years in jail. Our Executive Director joined the global call for their release by turning himself in to the Japanese embassy in Ottawa and demanding he be arrested as well for the so-called “crime” of defending the whales.

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Genetic Engineering

We fought in 2008 for mandatory labelling of genetically engineered (GE) food in Canada. People have the right to know what they are eating and the right to chose not to eat genetically modified food.

Canada remains one of only two industrialized countries that does not require mandatory labelling.

We supported a private members bill in Ottawa that would have given people the right to know which of our foods contain GE ingredients. MPs voted against the bill 156 to 101.

To prove to B.C.’s government that the vast majority of its residents – and in fact, the vast majority of Canadians – are in favour of labelling, Greenpeace delivered petitions to the steps of the Legislature in Victoria.

We released a report entitled Dead Zones: How Agricultural Fertilizers are Killing our Rivers, Lakes and Oceans, The report discussed the appearance of toxic dead zones across Canada caused by hazardous algae blooms, a problem that has become global and is largely caused by industrial agriculture.

2009

To make 2009 a year of environmental successes, we need your help. Donate, support our actions, volunteer with Greenpeace.