ENVIRONMENT : Greenpeace Rethinks Its Militant Methods : The activist group faces falling membership, dwindling donations and the adoption of its cause by governments it once challenged.
The image of the environmental group Greenpeace once leaned to the romantic: idealistic campaigners who took to tiny rubber boats to challenge what they considered to be leviathan despoilers of the sea.
Group members demonstrated against the killing of whales and seals, nuclear testing, chemical waste and drift-net fishing to protect the planet and creatures against pollution and slaughter by governments, multinational corporations and private entrepreneurs, they said. Greenpeace’s ship, Rainbow Warrior, was sunk by French agents while the vessel was protesting nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
“It was David against Goliath,” commented a former official. “It was all very daring, and it caught the public imagination. The media loved Greenpeace.”
But no longer.
Today, Greenpeace is a sprawling organization that is encountering rough seas itself--a victim, as much as anything, of its own success. It is struggling to chart a new course now that many have accepted its premises.
Members and officials are debating Greenpeace’s role at a time when environmental issues have been adopted--and some say co-opted--by major political parties in Western countries; even the United States boasts an “environment-friendly” vice president in Al Gore.
As for Greenpeace itself, its membership and donations are down from a worldwide high of 4.8 million supporters in 1990 and $180 million in donations in 1991; last year, the group counted 3.5 million supporters, and it has a $145-million budget today.
Greenpeace faces cuts of about 10% of its 1,100-member staff while it re-examines its strategy and waits for its board to select a new executive director.
Some attribute the dip in contributions to the recession and to “compassion fatigue,” as overwhelmed donors reconsider the effectiveness of all of their giving to activist and charitable groups.
But for Greenpeace, ultimately, “the question is whether to remain a militant campaigning organization, which the media seem to like,” says Blair Palese, an official based in the cluttered Central London office, “or to work more closely with government and industry to find solutions.”
While it may seem elemental to some, Greenpeace historically had not been involved in seeking solutions to environmental problems. Instead, its members preferred to take direct, though nonviolent, action to prevent what members saw as the gravest green damages.
Greenpeace, founded in Canada in 1971, staged some of its earliest campaigns against American nuclear testing on the Alaskan island of Amchitka; 12 original members sailed a small boat into the atomic testing area to draw attention to environmental abuse.
Greenpeace International was formed in 1979, uniting groups in the United States, Canada and Europe. The international organization coordinates activities of national groups and is funded by contributions from supporters in more than 150 countries. Greenpeace has offices in 30 nations with administrative headquarters in Amsterdam and media operations in London.
It takes partial credit for the push that led to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The group now calls for an end to whaling and over-fishing. It seeks the phased elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals; a ban on the exploitation of Antarctica; a halt to use of nuclear power; responsible management of nuclear and toxic wastes, and the promotion of clean, renewable energy, such as solar power.
While stalwart activists say Greenpeace must continue its confrontational tactics, others in the group say it must engage in other activities too, such as lobbying and drafting legislation. It also must press solutions to environmental problems, such as the “green fridge”--an environment-friendly refrigerator that does not use an ozone-depleting coolant; Greenpeace worked on a model of the appliance with German scientists.
Even while the tactical debate continues, Greenpeace continues to engage in confrontational activities, officials say. Recently, some of its members battled whalers in Norway, resulting in the Greenpeacers’ detention and deportation. Also Greenpeacers locked horns with drift-net fishermen in the Bay of Biscay and were fired on by French navy vessels.
