{"id":67761,"date":"2024-12-13T09:33:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T20:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=67761"},"modified":"2025-07-28T21:01:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:01:34","slug":"greenpeace-aotearoa-50-year-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/greenpeace-aotearoa-50-year-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"50 years of making waves to put hope into action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For fifty years, Greenpeace has been making waves here in Aotearoa. This year marks our 50th anniversary. Generations of activists have spoken truth to power under the Greenpeace banner. At sea and on land, with creative confrontation, investigations, savvy communications and direct action, together, we have fought tirelessly to protect the planet and promote peace.<\/p>\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n

They say that once you\u2019ve been with Greenpeace, you never really leave, and in many ways, it’s true. Here I am, 25 years since I last worked at the Auckland HQ, penning a piece for the website.<\/p>\n\n

Greenpeace has been an incredibly effective and impactful organisation in Aotearoa and around the world, and as the organisation marks five decades since registering as a charity<\/a> in Aotearoa, the job we do is more crucial than ever. The world faces accelerating habitat destruction and a deepening climate emergency. And here in Aotearoa, the sense of ecological crisis has recently been intensified by the arrival of a new National-led Coalition Government that brazenly wears its anti-environment heart on its pin-striped sleeve.<\/p>\n\n

So, now, in Greenpeace\u2019s semi-centennial year, it\u2019s timely to look back at past campaigns to learn from previous successes and look forward to new ones.<\/p>\n\n

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Table of contents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. The Pacific Peace Odyssey<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. A motley crew<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Ban the Bomb and Save the Whales<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. From the <\/a>Antarctic to the Wall of Death, driftnet fishing<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. World Park Antarctica<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. You can’t sink a rainbow<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Climate justice<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Fonterra climate crimes<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. No mining Pure NZ<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Defending the deep from bottom trawling<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. GE Free NZ<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Save the rivers and healthy water for all<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  13. Making oil history<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  14. Cameras on boats<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  15. The War on Nature<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  16. Toit\u016b Te Tiriti<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  17. 50 years of wins for people and planet<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  18. Now more than ever<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\n

    The Pacific Peace Odyssey<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Greenpeace began in Aotearoa as a loose grassroots network that formed to support the first protest voyages<\/a> against the French Government\u2019s nuclear weapons \u2018testing\u2019 at Moruroa Atoll in Tahiti Nui, French Polynesia, in 1972 and 1973. Because the nuclear warheads were detonated in the atmosphere, the tests resulted in deadly radioactive fallout raining down on eastern Polynesia and beyond.<\/p>\n\n

    A flotilla of small yachts initially led by Greenpeace III<\/em> (a.k.a. SV Vega<\/em>) first sailed from Aotearoa to Moruroa in 1972. The next year, Greenpeace III<\/em> was joined by SV Fri<\/a><\/em>, a larger wooden sailing boat. After these flotillas brought global attention to the dangerous tests, the French Government announced in 1973 that it would shift the tests underground.<\/p>\n\n

    \"A
    Mururoa peace fleet at sea, 1973. AAY 0258. Copyright undetermined. Taken from on board HMNZS Otago in 1973.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    It was a victory of sorts, but inevitably, the underground tests would crack and shatter the rocks around them, and radioactive contamination would leak out into the lagoon and the ocean.<\/p>\n\n

    After the announcement, there was a mood among the grassroots network to broaden the focus of the campaign to all five nuclear weapons states and to promote a positive message of peace.<\/p>\n\n

    A motley crew<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Much like the rag-tag group of mystics and mechanics that started Greenpeace in Canada by sailing out into the US nuclear test zone at Amchitca, here, too the rag-tag group that had gathered around the SV Fri<\/em> and SV Vega<\/em> combined the smell of engine oil with a whiff of patchouli oil. They were a diverse group, including hippies and sailors, students and teachers, idealists and pragmatists.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Th<\/figure>\n\n

    But this seemingly motley collection of volunteers was organised enough to register the name Greenpeace New Zealand as a charitable society in April 1974 and committed enough to fundraise to send SV Fri<\/em> on a much longer \u201cPacific Peace Odyssey\u201d across the planet.<\/p>\n\n

    Together, they made the necessary preparations in Tauranga before SV Fri<\/em> embarked on the first leg of a new voyage, sailing from Wellington on 11 August to Tahiti and arriving there in Papeete on 7 September 1974. Their odyssey promoted a global ban on all nuclear weapons testing and involved distributing \u2018Sowing the Seeds of Peace\u2019 postcards carrying messages of peace from Kiwis to citizens and governments in the nuclear weapons states.<\/p>\n\n

    Over three years, SV Fri<\/em> sailed 25,000 kilometres across the Pacific and Indian oceans to Tahiti, the Marshall Islands (a US Trust Territory), Hiroshima in Japan, Vladivostok in the Soviet Union (now Russia), the Yangtze River in China and Madras in India, to spread the word. Their voyage was in part sustained and coordinated by the fledgling Greenpeace New Zealand organisation in Aotearoa.<\/p>\n\n

    Ban the Bomb and Save the Whales!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    During the early years, Greenpeace\u2019s main goals were global bans on nuclear weapons testing<\/a> and to save the whales<\/a> by stopping commercial whaling! Both seemed like utopian ideals then, but Greenpeace had the growing power of public opinion on its side, and many governments were also prepared to pressure the French Government, including the Labour Government in Aotearoa led by Prime Minister Norm Kirk.<\/p>\n\n

    As both campaigns continued into the 1980s, Greenpeace New Zealand worked closely with its allies in the global Greenpeace movement and alongside Peace Movement Aotearoa, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Auckland Peace Squadron, Friends of the Earth, Project Jonah and others here in Aotearoa. <\/p>\n\n

    Greenpeace New Zealand helped to win a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1983 by organising protests against whaling and helping to expose the role of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in allowing \u2018pirate whaling\u2019 outside of the International Whaling Commission.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Soviet
    A Greenpeace Zodiac crew blockades a Russian harpoon ship during Greenpeace’s second whale campaign. Mid North Pacific Ocean, between Mexico and Hawaii.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    Greenpeace next sent SV Vega<\/em> (formerly Greenpeace III<\/em>) from Auckland to Tahiti and then on to protest at Moruroa Atoll in 1981 and 1982.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    \u00a9 Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    As nuclear issues came to dominate public debate in Aotearoa in the mid-1980s, Greenpeace also worked alongside its peace movement allies to campaign for a ban on all nuclear ship visits, including sending SV Vega<\/em> to protest against the nuclear submarine USS Phoenix<\/em> visiting Auckland in 1983.<\/p>\n\n

    After years of sustained peaceful direct-action protests that tried to stop visits by US and UK nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships, the Labour Government led by Prime Minister David Lange passed the Nuclear-Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act in 1987 which established a nuclear-free zone in New Zealand, banning all nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships from visiting New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n

    From Antarctica to \u2018Wall-of-Death\u2019 fishing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Greenpeace New Zealand also initiated new campaigns to protect Antarctica<\/a> from mining and oil exploitation and to end the global \u2018wall-of-death\u2019 driftnet fishing<\/a> industry with its indiscriminate slaughter of non-target dolphins, sharks and turtles. Both became iconic campaign wins for Greenpeace.<\/p>\n\n

    Greenpeace New Zealand took its Antarctic campaign proposal to Greenpeace International in 1983, which resulted in Greenpeace International agreeing to help fund Greenpeace New Zealand to start the campaign. <\/p>\n\n

    \"Sooty
    Sooty shearwater drowned in driftnet, North Pacific.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    Greenpeace New Zealand began campaigning to ban driftnet fishing in 1989, branding it \u2018wall-of-death\u2019 fishing. SV Rainbow Warrior II<\/em> sailed from Auckland into the Tasman Sea to search for and document the devastating death toll caused by driftnet fishing. Five days out, they found the first driftnet and were able to take photographs and video footage showing the appalling death toll of non-target dolphins, marine turtles, and sharks killed by the driftnets \u2013 some of which were known to be up to 60km long.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Linda
    Linda Ingham with Pacific white-sided dolphin caught in Japanese driftnet, north Pacific. (Greenpeace Witness book page 146)
    \u00a9 Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    Shocking photos and footage were sent to news media around the world and widely published here and overseas, ensuring the issue received mass coverage. Another classic example of bearing witness<\/a> to deliver a \u2018mind bomb\u2019<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

    After that, Greenpeace New Zealand met with Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer to show him the impact of large-scale driftnets on marine wildlife. His response was to say, \u201cI am going to tell my officials to do something about this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    Greenpeace diver freeing a sunfish caught in a Japanese driftnet. Tasman Sea (Greenpeace Witness book page 72)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    He later invited a Greenpeace New Zealand representative to attend the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in September 1990 to promote New Zealand\u2019s proposal for a global ban on driftnet fishing on the high seas. That led to a new UNGA resolution in 1991, and then in 1992, the UNGA voted to ban the use of all driftnets longer than 2.5 km on the high seas.<\/p>\n\n

    State violence<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Some campaign victories came as a result of years \u2013 sometimes decades \u2013 of persistent peaceful protest, even though Greenpeace\u2019s campaign activities were sometimes met with state violence. Infamously, Greenpeace\u2019s flagship, SV<\/em> Rainbow Warrior<\/em>, was bombed and sunk<\/a> by French government secret agents in downtown Auckland on 10 July 1985, killing on-board photographer Fernando Pereira shortly before the boat was due to depart for Tahiti to help rally opposition to the tests and then head to protest at Moruroa Atoll.<\/p>\n\n

    \"\"
    The Rainbow Warrior is in Marsden Wharf in Auckland Harbour after the bombing by French secret service agents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    A team of Greenpeace penguin protectors was assaulted in 1989 by French military officers at Dumont D\u2019Urville in Antarctica as they tried to stop the destruction of a series of islands where Adelie Penguins bred to make way for a new French government airstrip there. The French Navy rammed SV<\/em> Rainbow Warrior II<\/em> at Moruroa Atoll in 1995 before armed French commandos stormed the Greenpeace flagship and assaulted crew members and campaigners on board.<\/p>\n\n

    World Park Antarctica and a Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Undeterred, both campaigns continued. Greenpeace set up and ran<\/a> its own World Park Base in Antarctica from 1987-1992 and organised annual boat tours from Aotearoa to inspect coastal Antarctic bases, publishing reports exposing poor environmental management at many of them, including the poor management of radioactive waste from the US decommissioned nuclear power station at McMurdo Base. In Aotearoa, Greenpeace organised two nationwide \u2018Rolling Snowball\u2019 tours to help mobilise public support for a World Park in Antarctica<\/a>, culminating in a mass rally outside Parliament. During the rally, Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer announced the government would end its support for mining in Antarctica and instead back a World Park.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    In 1987 Greenpeace established the \u2018World Park Base\u2019 in Antarctica which stayed until 1991. The base was part of a 7 year campaign which concluded successfully with the Environmental protocol to the Antarctic treaty, an essential first step to protect the last (almost) untouched continent on this planet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    In the face of massive global public pressure to protect Antarctica, the Antarctic Treaty nations finally agreed to protect the ice continent from mining and oil exploitation in October 1991. That was followed a few weeks later by new protections for Southern Ocean seabirds enacted by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, requiring all fishing vessels to use bird-scaring lines and prohibit fishing vessels from discharging fish offal into the water within the huge Southern Ocean CCAMLR zone to reduce the number of seabirds killed. These measures were adopted after Greenpeace tabled photographic evidence it had gathered that showed albatrosses were being killed by the Soviet industrial longline fishing fleet in the CCAMLR, which it had gathered earlier in 1991 during an Antarctic expedition by Greenpeace\u2019s ice-class MV Gondwana<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n

    \"MV
    MV GONDWANA crew member Dimitri “Dima” Litvinov holding up a dead albatross killed in a Soviet longline in the Southern Ocean. The longliner KOZLOVO is in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    Then in 1994 the French Government abandoned the new airstrip it had built at Dumont D\u2019Urville in Antarctica, and a 50 million square kilometre Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was agreed, which Greenpeace had campaigned for, including peacefully confronting Japanese government whaling ships operating in the South Ocean, and touring New Zealand to ask mayors to sign-up to support the Sanctuary.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    Greenpeace Antarctica Expedition 1991\/92. Banner to commemorate final removal of World Park Base.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    You can\u2019t sink a rainbow<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    After the bombing and sinking of SV<\/em> Rainbow Warrior<\/em><\/a> and the death of Fernando Pereira, a New Zealand police investigation led to the arrest and imprisonment of two French government secret service agents (Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur) who were part of a larger French team that carried out the bombing. The United Nations brokered an arbitration process between the French and New Zealand governments and then in 1987, France was ordered to pay compensation to Greenpeace and the family of Fernando Pereira. Part of the compensation was used to build a bigger and more modern replacement boat, SV Rainbow Warrior II<\/em>, to continue the mission of the original SV Rainbow Warrior<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n

    Greenpeace continued to grow in Aotearoa after 1985 and was able to start employing its first full-time campaigners and professional staff to run its growing operations. The Greenpeace office in Auckland became an international hub. Greenpeace was, by now, a large organisation in North America and Europe, which meant that Greenpeace International was able to fund a new Pacific campaign and annual Antarctic expeditions, both of which were based out of the same Auckland office.<\/p>\n\n

    SV<\/em> Rainbow Warrior II<\/em> was launched in 1989, and after sailing to Auckland, it continued on to Tahiti and to protest at Moruroa Atoll several times between 1990 and 1992. Shortly after its campaign at Moruroa in April 1992, French President Francois Mitterand agreed that France would join the nuclear testing moratorium initiated by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev the previous year. In 1994, the USA and UK joined the moratorium. But when new French President Jacques Chirac was elected in 1995, he shocked the world by breaking the moratorium and resuming French nuclear weapons testing at Moruroa Atoll.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Rainbow
    Rainbow Warrior in the Tasman Sea. Full blue sails. (Greenpeace Witness book page 26)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    Greenpeace immediately revived its campaign and SV<\/em> Rainbow Warrior II<\/em> sailed from Auckland to Moruroa to protest with over 30 other boats in a new Flotilla that included a large Vaka sent by the Government of the Cook Islands, MV Greenpeace<\/em>, and independent skippers from around the region. SV Rainbow Warrior II<\/em> spearheaded the global campaign against the tests, which included Greenpeace offices around the world gathering 5 million signatures on a petition against the tests that was presented to the French Government in Paris. <\/p>\n\n

    \"MV
    MV GONDWANA and SV RAINBOW WARRIOR moored next together at Princess Wharf, Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, before the second leg of the 1989\/90 Antarctica expedition and the start of the Pacific Campaign.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    In the face of such huge opposition, including all MPs in the New Zealand Parliament and governments from the Pacific to Europe, President Chirac finally halted nuclear weapons testing at Moruroa Atoll in 1996. A global ban on nuclear weapons testing was agreed through the UN Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty a few months later, which was signed by all five nuclear weapons states on the UN Security Council (US, Russia, France, UK, China).<\/p>\n\n

    Campaigning for climate justice <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

    Greenpeace New Zealand started a new campaign in Aotearoa in 1990 to protect the climate<\/a>. The new campaign set out to stop new fossil-fuelled power stations being built, halt new oil and gas exploration, and take legal action on climate change through the 1991 Resource Management Act (RMA).<\/p>\n\n

    In 1992, the National Government led by Prime Minister Jim Bolger signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which Greenpeace and other eNGOs had campaigned for over the previous two years.<\/p>\n\n

    Then, in 1993, Greenpeace successfully pers\uaded the National Government to open up the RMA process for the Stratford gas-fired power station to include climate change considerations for the first time. Alongside other eNGOs and experts, a Greenpeace legal team made the case against the new power station at public hearings held in 1994. Disastrously, Environment Minister Simon Upton approved the power station in 1995 and the tree planting \u2018carbon offsets\u2019 promised never eventuated.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    Greenpeace action at Fletcher delivering toxic sludge pollution from TASMAN PULP AND PAPER mill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    In 1997, two Greenpeace activists scaled 30-metre cranes to block the Stratford power station\u2019s new generators from being unloaded in the Port of Taranaki, which drew high-profile media attention to the folly of building a new fossil-fuel power station at a time when the government had already signed up to the UNFCCC and pledged to cut carbon emissions 20% by the year 2000.<\/p>\n\n

    \"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n

    Then, in 1998, during SV Rainbow Warrior II\u2019s<\/em> tour of Aotearoa, activists unplugged Fletcher Challenge Energy\u2019s seismic testing cables in Taranaki to stop it from carrying out seismic testing and delivered the cables to the company\u2019s New Plymouth head office, calling for an end to new oil and gas exploration.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

    Promoting \u2018brilliant solutions\u2019 was the other arm of Greenpeace\u2019s climate campaign, including promoting solar energy through touring a mobile Solar Caf\u00e9, rooftop protests at Parliament and Mercury Energy\u2019s head office in Auckland calling for solarisation programmes, a Solar Pioneers project which saw thousands of Kiwis pledge to install solar water heating systems on their roofs, and the solarisation of Greenpeace\u2019s own office in Auckland.<\/p>\n\n

    As the campaign continued into the 2000s, Greenpeace was successful in opposing two proposed new coal-fired power stations, one at Meremere in the Waikato (2000) and one called Marsden B<\/a> in Ruakaka, Northland (2007). The Meremere proposal would have had a \u2018double whammy\u2019 because it was touted as a \u2018waste-to-energy\u2019 factory which would have burned vast quantities of household waste along with coal, belching out both carbon dioxide and toxic dioxin pollution. In both cases, Greenpeace worked as part of a wider people power movement opposed to the proposals.<\/p>\n\n

    \"Greenpeace
    Greenpeace organised “Stop Marsden B-each Day Out”, drawing strong local support from Ruakaka and Whangarei residents, along with people from as far away as the Bay of Islands. Representing the local hapu (the basic political unit within Maori society), play centres, the fire service and schools. An activist climbes the power station in protest with a banner reading “Coal Cooks The Climate”.
    \u00a9 Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

    As public support for climate action grew, the Labour-led Coalition Government of Prime Minister Helen Clark passed an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) into law in September 2008, shortly before a new general election. The National-led Coalition led by Prime Minister John Key that came into office after the election immediately began reversing the climate action put in place by the previous government.<\/p>\n\n

    A group of high-profile Kiwis joined with Greenpeace in 2009 to launch a new online \u2018Sign On\u2019 campaign calling for stronger climate action from the new government, and for Prime Minister John Key to go to the Copenhagen climate summit. The campaign received the support of over 230,000 people, but the new government\u2019s policies still fell far short of what was needed, including gutting the ETS. That sent a message to the international community that New Zealand now had a government that was not serious about tackling climate change.<\/p>\n\n

    \n