Greenpeace Fund Programs
Oceans, Whales & Seafood
All around the world, our oceans are in crisis. Three quarters of global fish stocks are suffering from overfishing and 90% of top marine predators are already gone.
Destructive fishing practices destroy critical ocean habitats, pirate fishing harms global fish stocks and as the ocean becomes more vulnerable—it will succumb more quickly to the harmful effects of global warming.
Whale slaughter continues to put endangered species at risk and pollution from land-based sources is turning the oceans into a dumping ground.
Ocean advocates must work harder than ever to chart a new, sustainable course for the oceans before it’s too late. Over the next three years Greenpeace will:
- Continue to change seafood choices made at a wholesale level by working with supermarket retailers to make sustainable seafood the only choice available.
- Convince governments and the United Nations that marine reserves are critical to the oceans' future—especially to advocate for setting aside 40% of the world’s oceans as marine reserves.
- Ensure that the Obama administration uses their diplomatic leverage to close the loopholes and end all commercial whaling.
Stop Global Warming Quit Coal and Start a Clean Energy Movement
We are changing our planet in a fundamental way. Our world is hotter today than it has been in two thousand years.
By the end of the century, if current trends continue, the global temperature could climb so high that the climate and weather patterns that have given rise to human civilization would be radically different.
But it didn’t happen on its own. We’re driving climate change by burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. In fact, coal-fired power plants are the single largest U.S. source of global warming pollution.
America's coal-burning power plants, in addition to causing global warming and climate change, are killing tens of thousands of Americans, poisoning our air and water, and making our children sick.
But a brighter future is possible. Over the next three years, Greenpeace will:
- Join local communities to shut down dangerous, dirty coal plants all across the United States.
- Advocate for strong laws to curb global warming and put America on a path to clean energy.
- Expose climate deniers, like the Koch Brothers, and hold them publicly accountable for providing millions of dollars to lobby against climate and clean energy policies.
- Kick-start an Energy Revolution by advocating for clean-energy solutions like solar and wind power.
Research has shown that with current technology, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geo-thermal can provide almost all of our primary energy demand.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Protection for Paradise Forests in Indonesia
In just eight weeks last year, a global Greenpeace campaign transformed Nestlé from a company driving rainforest destruction, to one pioneering an ambitious new policy to ensure its products have a zero deforestation footprint. Under its new policy, announced in May 2010, Nestlé committed to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage "high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation." This exclusion applied to companies such as Sinar Mas, Indonesia's most notorious palm oil and pulp and paper supplier. It also had implications for palm oil traders, such as Cargill. Greenpeace achieved similar victories with Burger King, when the company dropped Sinar Mas from their supply chain as a result of our efforts; and HSBC – the world's largest banking and financial services company – when it dropped Sinar Mas from its investment management funds.
Slaughtering the Amazon No More
Following a Greenpeace report in 2010 and a targeted campaign against companies such as Nike, Adidas and Timberland who source leather for their shoes from Brazil, four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry joined forces to stop deforestation in the Amazon. The companies agreed to stop purchasing cattle from newly deforested areas after the shoe companies and major beef buyers like McDonald’s threatened to cancel contracts unless their beef and leather products were guaranteed to be free from links to Amazon destruction. The meat companies Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva signed a formal moratorium, which included a pledge for better protection of the rainforest.
A Worldwide Ban on Large-scale Driftnets on the High Seas
In the 1980's, Greenpeace ran a high-profile campaign to expose the atrocities associated with the use of large-scale driftnets. As a result of these efforts, the United Nations invoked a moratorium on high seas large-scale driftnets in 1989, in response to public outrage at their indiscriminate destruction to sea life. Greenpeace exposed driftnets as "walls of death" due to their ability to entangle and kill most species that swim into them, including dolphins, sharks, seals, squids and many species of birds. In 1992, a worldwide ban was put into force.
For all that Greenpeace has achieved since it's founding in 1971, there remains much work to be done. The challenges – and the consequences of failure – are ever greater, which is why Greenpeace is unafraid to reach beyond what is expected and seeks to accomplish what is most needed.