The GreenPeace logo is a picture of a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. The logo has a green background and the word "GREENPEACE" under the picture.
GreenPeace was created in 1971 by a small group of activists, who decided to put their vision of a green and peaceful world to work. They also believed that individuals could make a difference in the world.
Their first mission was to stop nuclear weapons testing on an island off the west coast of Alaska
that had over 3,000 endangered animals including sea otters, bald eagles and rare types of falcons. Later that year, the weapons were stopped and the island was turned into a bird sanctuary thanks to Greenpeace's protesting.
The aims of Greenpeace include:
- The protection of oceans and ancient forests
- To promote renewable energy to stop climate change.
- To rid of toxic chemicals
- The prevention of illegal modified organisms being released into nature
- An end to nuclear threats etc
- Safe and sustainable trade
- Animals treated properly eg keeping habitat and not being used for experiments.
- A southern ocean whale sanctuary needed to stop whaling
- Stop nuclear weaponry testing
- No more dumping of radio-active waste in the sea.
One of the most biggest issues Greenpeace has been involved with is to stop whaling. Japanese "scientists" have been hunting whales saying they were experimenting on them but they usually just end up in restaurants, schools or supermarkets and some are simply just not sold.
Another important issue would be stopping climate change. Greenpeace have been in favor of this for the last few years, asking the government to introduce renewable sources of energy such as solar power or wind energy.
Whaling
The killing of whales has been located in the southern ocean near Antarctica. Large ships have been used to carry the whales and large harpoons have been used to kill them.
This issue is a great concern to most people. The Japanese "scientists" have said that the whales they kill are used for scientific research. Greenpeace says that is still horrible to kill and take the bodies of over 1,000 whales for research. They are starting to believe that they are also feeding it the community etc. Whales are becoming extinct and one of the biggest causes is that the Japanese are killing 1thousands of whales each year.
Greenpeace have been using a number of strategies to stop the Japanese from killing the whales their 2 strongest ones are:
- Going to Antarctica and getting their boat in front of the huge ships and protesting, sometimes demanding to come aboard and check if they are really doing their "scientific research".
- Holding large protests at important events, making campaigns to promote the safety of whales, getting the government involved, and recruiting others to join the fight against the cruelty.
One of the biggest successes Greenpeace has had was in year 2000 when they reminded "Tuna Pirates" about the law. Pirate Fishing caused collateral damage to animals they weren't even fishing for these include sharks; dolphins the endangered see bird albatross and even sea turtles!
Greenpeace scored a major success when the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas banned the import of tuna from flag-of-convenience countries.
