Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, anti-war and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, advocacy, research, and ecotage to achieve its goals.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry".
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film, the fourth installment in the Star Trek film franchise based on the television series Star Trek. The second film directed by Leonard Nimoy, it completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their actions in the previous film, the former crew of the USS Enterprise finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth's past to find whales who can answer the probe's call.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation activism organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the United States. Sea Shepherd employs direct action tactics to achieve its goals, most famously by deploying its fleet of ships to track, report on and actively impede the work of fishing vessels believed to be engaged in illegal and unregulated activities causing the unsustainable exploitation of marine life.
Paul Franklin Watson is a Canadian-American environmental, conservation and animal rights activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
David Fraser McTaggart was a Canadian environmentalist who played a central part in the foundation of Greenpeace International.
Patrick Albert Moore is a Canadian industry consultant, former activist, an early member and past president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace in 1986, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism". Greenpeace has criticized Moore, calling him "a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry" who "exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson".
Paul Spong is a New Zealand-born Canadian cetologist and neuroscientist. He has been researching orcas in British Columbia since 1967, and is credited with increasing public awareness of whaling, through his involvement with Greenpeace.
Robert Lorne Hunter was a Canadian environmentalist, journalist, author and politician. He was a member of the Don't Make a Wave Committee in 1969, and a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1971 and its first president. He led the first on-sea anti-whaling campaigns in the world, against Russian and Australian whalers, which helped lead to the ban on commercial whaling. He campaigned against nuclear testing, the Canadian seal hunt and later, climate change with his book Thermageddon: Countdown to 2030. He was named by Time as one of the "Eco-Heroes" of the 20th century.
Paul Winter is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He is a pioneer of world music and earth music, which interweaves the voices of the wild with instrumental voices from classical, jazz and world music. The music is often improvised and recorded in nature to reflect the qualities brought into play by the environment.
The Nisshin Maru (日新丸) was the primary vessel of the Japanese whaling fleet and was the world's only whaler factory ship. It was the research base ship for the Institute of Cetacean Research for 2002 to 2007. It had a tonnage of 8,145 GT and is the largest member and flagship of the five-ship whaling fleet, headed by leader Shigetoshi Nishiwaki. The ship was based in Japan in Shimonoseki harbor and was owned by Tokyo-based Kyodo Senpaku, which is a subsidiary of the Institute of Cetacean Research.
Rex Weyler is an American-Canadian author, journalist and ecologist. He has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher. In the 1970s, Weyler served as a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, and as campaign photographer and publisher of the Greenpeace Chronicles. He was a cofounder of Greenpeace International in 1979.
Roger Searle Payne was an American biologist and environmentalist famous for his 1967 discovery of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to end commercial whaling.
William Edward Jackson III served with Greenpeace in its early years (1975–77), as crew member on the first anti-whaling expedition, and as cofounder of Greenpeace San Francisco. A pioneer synthesizer player, Jackson was aboard the Greenpeace V as part of the media campaign to demonstrate whale intelligence, and to disrupt Russian whaling. Jackson played a large modular synthesizer that had been brought onboard, broadcast through underwater speakers, with the intention of communicating with whales through synthesized whale song. He was one of six persons out of a rotating pool of 35 to remain aboard throughout the expedition. Bob Hunter, cofounder and first president of Greenpeace, credits Jackson with saving him from drowning at Triangle Island.
Greenpeace USA is the United States affiliate of Greenpeace International, an environmental nonprofit organization that spawned a social movement inspired by direct actions on the high seas to stop whaling and nuclear testing. Headquartered in Washington D.C., Greenpeace U.S.A. operates with an annual budget of approximately $40 million, employing over 500 people in 2020. The organization relies on donations from members, refuses corporate contributions and refrains from endorsing political candidates, though in 2020 Greenpeace USA issued climate scorecards for presidential candidates and ranked them from best to worst on climate
Michael Bailey, described as "one of the foremost eco-warriors of our times" according to Rex Weyler, is a founding member of Greenpeace, along with Paul Watson, Patrick Moore, David McTaggart and others. He supervised the original Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior.
Anti-whaling refers to actions taken by those who seek to end whaling in various forms, whether locally or globally in the pursuit of marine conservation. Such activism is often a response to specific conflicts with pro-whaling countries and organizations that practice commercial whaling and/or research whaling, as well as with indigenous groups engaged in subsistence whaling. Some anti-whaling factions have received criticism and legal action for extreme methods including violent direct action. The term anti-whaling may also be used to describe beliefs and activities related to these actions.
Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson is a 2011 documentary film directed by Trish Dolman and produced by Kevin Eastwood. It follows radical conservationist Paul Watson during anti-whaling campaigns in the Antarctic in 2009 and 2010, and recounts his history and controversial methods as an activist and media personality. It premiered May 1, 2011 at the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival.
The Phyllis Cormack is a 25-meter (82-foot) herring and halibut seine fishing boat, displacing 99 tons and crewed by up to 12 people. The wooden vessel was built in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, by Marine View Boat Works.
Russian whaling has been conducted by native peoples in the Chukotka region of Russia since at least 4,000 years ago by native Yupik and Chukchi people, but commercial whaling did not begin until the mid-19th century, when companies based in Finland sent out vessels to the Pacific. It was not until 1932 that modern pelagic whaling began to take off with the purchase of an American cargo ship which was renamed the Aleut, which was the only Soviet factory ship until World War II. After the war, with the need for a stronger Soviet economy and rapid industrialization of the country during the 1940s and 1950s, Soviet whaling took off and became a truly global industry. The first Soviet whalers reached the Antarctic during the 1946–47 season with the factory ship Slava and then underwent a rapid expansion during the late 1950s in which 5 new fleets were added within a 4-year span: Sovetskaya Ukraina in 1959, Yuriy Dolgorukiy in 1960, and Sovetskaya Rossiya in 1961 for the Antarctic, and finally two large fleets in 1963 for the North Pacific. Thus, by the early 1960s Soviet whaling had truly become a global industry, operating in every ocean except the North Atlantic and undertaking voyages that could last as long as seven months each. From 1964 to 1973, the Soviet Union was considered by some the biggest whaling nation in the world.
