GREENPEACE

Greenpeace is an international group of non-governmental organization for the protection and conservation of the environment. Greenpeace uses direct action, lobbying and research to achieve its goals. Greenpeace has a worldwide presence with national and regional offices in 46 countries, which are affiliated to the Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International. The global organization receives its income through the individual contributions of an estimated 3 million financial supporters.

Greenpeace, originally known as the Greenpeace Foundation, was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1971. On September 15, 1971, the Don't Make a Wave Committee sent an eighty foot halibut seiner “Phyllis Cormack”, from Vancouver, to oppose the United States testing nuclear devices in Amchitka, Alaska While the boat never reached its destination and was turned back by the US military, this campaign was deemed the first using the name Greenpeace. In 1972, the Greenpeace Foundation evolved in its own right to a less conservative and structured collective of environmentalists who were more reflective of the days counterculture and hippie youth movements who were spearheading the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The social and cultural background from which Greenpeace emerged heralded a period of de-conditioning away from old world antecedents and sought to develop new codes of social, environmental and political behavior.

The focus of the organization later turned from anti-nuclear protest to other environmental issues: whaling, bottom trawling, global warming, old growth. nuclear power, and even genetically modified organisms. Greenpeace is a global environmental organization has 28 offices in different regions in the United States, and 42 regions worldwide, thus having a presence all over the world. These national and regional offices are largely autonomous in carrying out jointly agreed global campaign strategies within the local context they operate in and in seeking the necessary financial support from donors to fund this work. National and regional offices support a network of volunteer-run local groups. Local groups participate in many campaigns in their area and mobilize for larger protests and activities elsewhere. Millions of supporters who are not organized into local groups support Greenpeace by making financial donations and participating in campaigns as citizens and consumers. Greenpeace runs campaigns and projects which fit into the "Issues" (as campaign areas are called within Greenpeace) categories below. Besides exposing problems such as over-fishing or threats linked to nuclear power, such as harmful radiation and proliferation, Greenpeace campaigns for alternative solutions such as marine reserves and renewable energy.

The organization currently addresses many and varied environmental issues with a primary focus on efforts to stop global warming and the preservation of the world's oceans and ancient forests. In addition to conventional environmental organization methods, such as lobbying businesses and politicians and participating in international conferences, Greenpeace uses direct action to attract attention to particular environmental problems.