40 Years of Greenpeace Victories
We share these victories with our dedicated supporters around the world.
In 1971, a group of activists set sail to Amchitka Island, Alaska to protest nuclear testing. As Bob Hunter, one of the crew members put it, "Whatever history decides about the big picture, the legacy of the voyage itself is not just a bunch of guys in a fishing boat, but the Greenpeace the entire world has come to love and hate." Since then, with a combination of daring action, solid science, and political pressure, Greenpeace has revealed the threats, confronted the villains and forced the solutions necessary for a green and peaceful world.
A Look Back at 2011
Working in collaboration with friends, supporters, volunteers and organizations throughout the country, Greenpeace has:
FEBRUARY
Costco improves seafood policies in a stunning win for the oceans. Read more
Sinar Mas palm oil branch Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) unveiled a plan to no longer destroy forests and carbon-rich peatlands. Read more
MAY
We teamed up with Center for Commercial-Free Childhood, Rethinking Schools, and Friends of the Earth in asking Scholastic to reconsider a contract with the American Coal Foundation (ACF). Read more
Tongass wildlands get big win in court. Read more
JUNE
The state senate voted overwhelmingly (26-4) to close Vermont Yankee as scheduled in March 2012. Read more
JULY/AUGUST
Adidas joins Nike and Puma in going toxic-free. This is great news for our environment, our rivers and the millions of people in China and elsewhere who depend on rivers for drinking water and agriculture. Read more
JULY
At the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) meeting they changed their rules of procedure to address the rampant corruption of their process caused by Japan’s vote buying by no longer allowing a country to pay their dues using cash, credit cards or other non transparent means. However the good news for whales didn’t stop there as the US government formally put Iceland on notice that their hunting of endangered Fin whales has to end. Read more
Lego takes action to tackle deforestation. Read more
AUGUST
Potomac River Coal Plant is shutting down in 2012. Read more
Duke announces closure of polluting coal boiler at Miami Fort Station. Read more
Duke announces 2015 closing of Beckjord coal plant. Read more
SEPTEMBER
President Obama took a step in the right direction to meet his campaign promise to work to end commercial whaling. Read more
OCTOBER
Mattel and Barbie drop deforestation! Read more
NOVEMBER
The new Hasbro policy means it will avoid buying paper for things like toy packaging and board games that comes from endangered forest destruction. That includes notorious forest-destroyer Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Read more
ASMFC votes to save menhaden. Read more
DECEMBER
Greener Refirgerants are Finally Legal in the U.S. Read more
Facebook steps up to become a champion for clean and renewable energy. Read more
A Legacy of Transformational Change
"You're trying to get your children into the 21st century. To hell with the rules". David McTaggart, Founder, Greenpeace International (1932-2001)
For all that Greenpeace has achieved since it's founding in 1971, there remains much work to be done. The challenges – and the consequences of failure – are ever greater, which is why Greenpeace is unafraid to reach beyond what is expected and seeks to accomplish what is most needed.
As we move forward toward these critically needed goals, Greenpeace celebrates the milestones we achieve along the way.
World Park Antarctica Declared
In the early 80's the threat of commercial exploitation of Antarctica loomed large for a number of reasons. Greenpeace believed to protect the pristine wilderness it warranted "World Park" designation. It soon became apparent that the organization would have to set up a permanent base on the ice if it was to have a voice at the Antarctica Treaty table. Greenpeace remained on the ice for a total of five years from 1987 to 1991, at which point the 39 Antarctic Treaty signatories agreed to a 50-year minimum prohibition of all mineral exploitation, in effect preserving the continent for peaceful, scientific purposes.
Kyoto Ratified: Global Warming on Notice
In 2004, more than a decade of lobbying, scientific research, and direct non-violent action by Greenpeace and environmental groups around the world came to fruition as Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, bringing to force the world's sole global effort to address the dangers of global warming.
Commercial Whaling, Banned
Our work to save the whales is perhaps the most well-known Greenpeace campaign. Our tradition of physically placing activist bodies between the harpoons and the whales has helped save the lives of whales on site and influenced worldwide laws for their protection. But our work in the water is just a fraction of our efforts to protect these amazing animals and that work continues today - 28 years after a moratorium banned commercial whaling. On June 25th, 2010, thanks to the efforts of Greenpeace, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) rejected a proposal to repeal this ban. The repeal was initially supported by the Obama administration, until they heard from some 1.5 million supporters who wrote letters, signed petitions and participated in “Save the Whales” rallies designed to pressure the president to honor his campaign promise and stand with Greenpeace and the whales. The change in position by the president was instrumental in preventing the ban from being lifted.
Brent Spar Comes Ashore
In 1995, Greenpeace activists occupied the Brent Spar oil storage facility in the North Sea. Shell, the world's then-largest oil company, planned to simply dump the 14,500 ton installation into the ocean. In what is remembered as one of the most significant Greenpeace successes of the 1990s, the company reversed its decision and agreed to dismantle and recycle the Spar on land.
A Worldwide Ban on Large-scale Driftnets on the High Seas
In the 1980's, Greenpeace ran a high-profile campaign to expose the atrocities associated with the use of large-scale driftnets. As a result of these efforts, the United Nations invoked a moratorium on high seas large-scale driftnets in 1989, in response to public outrage at their indiscriminate destruction to sea life. Greenpeace exposed driftnets as "walls of death" due to their ability to entangle and kill most species that swim into them, including dolphins, sharks, seals, squids and many species of birds. In 1992, a worldwide ban was put into force.
A Ban on Dumping Radioactive Waste at Sea
After five years of intensive campaigning by Greenpeace that involved repeated actions combined with aggressive diplomatic efforts, the Parties to the London Dumping Convention invoked a moratorium on radioactive waste dumping at sea in 1983. This officially became the first year since the end of the second world war in which no radioactive wastes were dumped in the ocean. In 1993, the Convention permanently banned the dumping of radioactive and industrial waste at sea world-wide.
Protection for Paradise Forests in Indonesia
In just eight weeks, a global Greenpeace campaign transformed Nestlé from a company driving rainforest destruction, to one pioneering an ambitious new policy to ensure its products have a zero deforestation footprint. Under its new policy, announced in May 2010, Nestlé committed to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage "high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation." This exclusion applied to companies such as Sinar Mas, Indonesia's most notorious palm oil and pulp and paper supplier. It also had implications for palm oil traders, such as Cargill. Greenpeace achieved similar victories with Burger King, when the company dropped Sinar Mas from their supply chain as a result of our efforts; and HSBC – the world's largest banking and financial services company – when it dropped Sinar Mas from its investment management funds.
Slaughtering the Amazon No More
Following a Greenpeace report and a targeted campaign against companies such as Nike, Adidas and Timberland who source leather for their shoes from Brazil, four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry joined forces to stop deforestation in the Amazon. The companies agreed to stop purchasing cattle from newly deforested areas after the shoe companies and major beef buyers like McDonald’s threatened to cancel contracts unless their beef and leather products were guaranteed to be free from links to Amazon destruction. The meat companies Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva signed a formal moratorium, which included a pledge for better protection of the rainforest.
Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
In May 2010, Greenpeace helped bring about passage of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which brought eight environmental groups and 21 forest companies together to establish protection for 178 million acres of Canadian Boreal Forest. The agreement included a logging moratorium on nearly 71 million acres that covers virtually all of the habitat of the threatened woodland caribou. This significant victory resulted from almost a decade of hard hard-fought campaigning, intense market pressure and peaceful direct action. It paves the way to permanently protect vast areas of wilderness and biodiversity in the Canadian Boreal Forest and secure billions of tons of stored carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change if the forest was logged.
Great Bear Rainforest
After ten years of difficult, dangerous and - at times - heartbreaking work, and thousands of activists from around the world taking action, one of the world's treasures, the Great Bear Rainforest, was saved from destruction in February 2006. The final agreement, announced by the British Columbian Government, provided full protection of one-third of the Great Bear Rainforest from any logging, and ensured that the logging industry implemented a strict ecosystem-based management system in the other two thirds of the forest that is outside strict protection.
Natural Refrigerants are the Coolest
Refrigeration and cooling have an often-overlooked but nonetheless major impact on global warming.
Our first big success on natural refrigerants came in 1992, when Greenpeace developed an alternative refrigerator that did not use the extremely potent greenhouse gases HFCs and HCFCs. Over 400 million refrigerators utilizing this technology have been sold in Europe, Asia, and South America by leading brands including Whirlpool, Bosch, Haier, Panasonic, LG, Miele, Electrolux, and Siemens.
In 2004, Coca-Cola, Unilever and McDonalds, founded Refrigerants Naturally with Greenpeace and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Pepsico joined in 2008.
In 2009, the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) was founded. It is a consortium of 400 companies with a total revenue of about $2.8 trillion and represents the world's leading consumer brands and retailers. In November 2010, the Consumer Goods Forum Board passed a resolution to phase out HFCs in new refrigeration units starting in 2015.
The CGF victory caps a 20 year campaign and transforms an entire sector of industry by eliminating HFCs.
An End to Kleercut Logging
When an individual makes an environmentally-conscious choice, it is an important step for conservation. But when a corporation implements an environmentally-conscious policy, that impact is amplified thousands of times over. In a tremendous victory for ancient forests, Kimberly-Clark, the company known for its popular brands like Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle, announced a new policy that placed it among the industry leaders in sustainability. The largest global tissue producer had up to that point been primarily using virgin fibers from the Canadian Boreal Forest to produce its products. The announcement brought the five-year Greenpeace "Kleercut" campaign to a successful completion, created a model of sustainability for forest-products companies worldwide, and ensured that K-C will no longer be purchasing pulp from critical Boreal habitat unless strict ecological criteria are met.
Electronics Go Greener
The amount of electronic products discarded globally has skyrocketed recently, with 20-50 million tons generated every year. To encourage electronic companies to reduce "e-waste," we released a "Guide to Greener Electronics." In response, companies like Apple, Phillips and Motorola have changed their ways.
Stockholm Convention Eliminates Dangerous Pollutants
In 2004, the Stockholm Convention came into force following years of lobbying by Greenpeace and other environmental organizations. A key feature of the Convention called for the elimination of all Persistent Organic Pollutants. They include intentionally produced chemicals, such as pesticides and PCBs, as well as byproducts such as cancer-causing dioxins that are released from industries that use chlorine and from waste incinerators.
Precautionary Principle Adopted for GE Food
Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally. To protect the environment and human health from the risks of GE food, Greenpeace has campaigned to stop its release into our environment since 1995. We scored a big win in 2000 when the Biosafety Protocol was adopted in Montreal, Canada. This agreement mandates that countries take precautionary measures to prevent GMOs from causing harm to biodiversity and human health.