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Greenpeace has acquired a reputation for the dramatic use of nonviolent direct action in campaigns to stop atmospheric nuclear testing and to bring an end to high-seas whaling. In recent years, the focus of the organisation has turned to other environmental issues, including high seas bottom trawling, climate change and genetic engineering.
Greenpeace has national and regional offices in 41 countries worldwide, all of which have affiliation with the Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International. The global organisation receives its income through the individual contributions of an estimated 2.8 million financial supporters, as well as from grants from charitable foundations, but does not accept funding from governments or corporations.
Greenpeace's official mission statement describes the organisation and its aims thusly:
The origins of Greenpeace lie in the formation of the Don't Make A Wave Committee by an assortment of Canadian and American ex-patriate peace activists in Vancouver in 1970. Taking its name from a slogan used during protests against United States nuclear testing in late 1969, the Committee came together with the objective of stopping a second underground nuclear bomb test codnamed "Cannikin" by the United States military beneath the island of Amchitka, AlaskaOn January 3, 1959, Alaska was admitted to the United States as the 49th state. The population of the state is 626,932, as of 2000. The name "Alaska" is most likely derived from the Aleut word for "great country" or "mainland. The natives called it "Alyes. The committee's founders and early members included:
Darnell has received the credit for combining the words ‘green’ and ‘peace’, thereby giving the organisation its future name.
In September 1971, the group chartered the Phyllis Cormack , a fishing vessel skippered by John Cormack . They named it the Greenpeace, and set sail for the island of Amchitka with the intention of disrupting the scheduled second nuclear test. The US Coast GuardThe United States Coast Guard is the coast guard of the United States. One of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and the smallest armed service of the United States, it has a broad and important role in law enforcement, search-and-rescue, vessel Confidence intercepted the Phyllis Cormack and forced her to return to port, but not before the crew of the Confidence delivered a note (behind their Captain's back) declaring "what you are doing is for the good of all mankind".
Upon their return to Alaska, the crew learned that protests had taken place in all major Canadian cities, and that the United States had postponed the second underground test until November. Although attempts to sail into the test zone using a second chartered vessel also failed, no further nuclear tests took place at Amchitka.
On 4 May 1972, following Stowe's departure from the chairmanship of the Don't Make A Wave Committee, the fledgling environmental group officially changed its name to the "Greenpeace Foundation".
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