Text 1. Greenpeace. Origins.

Greenpeace is a 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.

The origins of Greenpeace lie in the peace movement and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament generally, and particularly in the Don't Make A Wave Committee co-founded by Jim Bohlen, Patrick Moore, Paul Coté, and Irving Stowe, followed by an assortment of Canadian and expatriate American peace activists in Vancouver in 1970. Taking its name from a slogan used during protests against United States nuclear weapons testing in late 1969, the Committee had come together with the objective of stopping a U.S. nuclear bomb test codenamed Cannikin beneath the Aleutian island of Amchitka, Alaska. The first ship expedition, inspired by the voyages of the Golden Rule, Phoenix and Everyman in 1958, was on the chartered West Coast fishing vessel, the "Phyllis Cormack," owned and sailed by John Cormack of Vancouver, and called the Greenpeace I; the second expedition was nicknamed Greenpeace Too. The test was not prevented, but the voyage laid the groundwork for Greenpeace's later activities. 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.

Bill Darnell has received the credit for combining the words "green" and "peace", there by giving the organization its future name. Irving Stowe, Paul Coté and Jim Bohlen are co-founders of Greenpeace. Coté and Bohlen traveled to Anchorage to speak to legislators (many of whom were also against the testing) about the activities of Greenpeace. The two men said that they were highly amused at the surveillance placed on them by the American government. The Alaska Fish and Game Department protested loudly about the destruction of the sea lion population and many other species of sea life. The Phyllis Cormack stationed herself outside the testing zone to observe the results of the tests. After the initial underwater tests, the United States Congress voted against further underwater testing. Robert Hunter was a media guru and spiritual and organisational leader. Ben Metcalfe became the first Chairman of the Greenpeace Foundation and with his wife Dorothy managed the media for the first few years. Dr. Patrick Moore was the ecologist of note and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada as well as seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. Rod Marining's campaign saved the entrance to Vancouver's Stanley Park. He was on the first voyage to Amchitka and was a board member during the 1970s. Paul Watson was involved in the early days of Greenpeace and led Harp Seal Campaigns and Josh Norris, and Lyle Thurston was the medical doctor on the first voyage and served on the board during the 1970s.

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 counterculture and hippie youth movements 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 genetically modified organisms.

On its official website, Greenpeace defines its mission as the following:

Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by:

· Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.

· Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves.

· Protecting the world’s remaining ancient forests which are depended on by many animals, plants and people.

· Working for disarmament and peace by reducing dependence on finite resources and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

· Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing.

· Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by encouraging socially and ecologically responsible farming practices.