Greenpeace loses ship, but its membership soars

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 19

Greenpeace loses ship, but its membership soars

The environmental protest organisation Greenpeace has made a lot of waves since its first campaign in 1970-71 against atmospheric nuclear testing in Amchitka, Alaska, when it was known as the “Don’t Make a Wave Committee.”

It then had 12 supporters on Canada’s Pacific coast. By 1977, 80,000 members were spread over half-a-dozen countries with a budget of $543,000. Today, Greenpeace has 1.3 million members in 15 countries, more than 30 offices, a staff of over 150, and a planned budget next year of ?30 million. Until earlier this year, it had four boats, too. And it was the loss of one of these, the Rainbow Warrior, sunk in Auckland Harbour on July 10, that shot Greenpeace directly into the world spotlight. Since then, new members have applied to the organisation in droves. It has received massive support worldwide and more publicity for its protest aims than ever its own keenest supporters could have planned. It is now a body of world stature.

Over the past 15 years, Greenpeace has fought against atmospheric and underground testing by the French in the Pacific, against commercial whaling, the massacre of baby seals, radioactive waste dumping in the Atlantic, the discharge of waste from Britain’s Windscale nuclear plant, toxic waste dumping in the North Sea, and many more campaigns. It has made enemies of the Governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, France, and Britain, countless multinationals, the fur industry, and British Nuclear Fuels, to name but a few. It claims a series of successes: stopping the French from making atmospheric tests, achieving an agreement to phase out commercial whaling by 1985-86, reducing the kill of two-week-old seal pups to one-tenth of traditional levels, halting the practice of radioactive waste dumping in the Atlantic, and stopping the importation of dolphins and killer whales into Britain.

Inevitably, the organisation is accused of being a “front” whenever its activities become bothersome.

“When we’re opposing nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, we’re K.G.8.,” says Greenpeace’s inter-

national director, Mr Peter Wilkinson. “When we go to Russia and protest, we’re financed by the C.1.A.” Greenpeace has even been accused by a former French Prime Minister, Michel Debre, of being an Anglo-Saxon plot to subvert the glory of France. Making a virtue of being virtuous, Greenpeace does not solicit big donations (although it admits there was a recent one of $260,000). That way, it is beholden to no-one. Also, it steers clear of political issues; one cannot stand for a political party and be a member of Greenpeace at the same time. Like Mahatma Gandhi, it believes in fighting violence with nonviolence, even if some of its methods are irritating, like spraying indelible green paint on white baby seals to spoil their pelts. Greenpeace’s funds come mainly from $2O to $3O a head subscriptions from members, mail order sales, and fund-raising for specific campaigns. The grassroots body is organised worldwide through a series of 15 national organisations — in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Spain, France, Britain, Luxemburg, the Nether-

lands, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. Each has a national board which is responsible for raising funds and carrying out policy. Each national body elects a councillor to an international council which considers over-all policy and progress: The council in turn elects an international board of five people (chairperson, two. from Europe, two from elsewhere) which acts as an executive body from the organisation’s international administrative headquarters at Lewes, in Sussex, England. Staff, about 250 worldwide, tend to be young, clean-living, and dedicated. They are not highly paid — salaries range from $12,000 to about $46,000 depending on country of origin and expenses needed, while boat staff salaries are based on a British national subsistence formula of a basic $llB a week. They gain much of their reward from service to their cause. Those in Greenpeace have always seen themselves as the little man’s group against the big guys. Its reputation now is even greater as a modern-day David fighting the international Goliaths out to ravage the environment.

From

ROBIN CHARTERIS,

in London