Beyond Whales: The Diverse Campaigns of Greenpeace in Europe and Worldwide

When people think of Greenpeace, images of small inflatable boats confronting massive whaling ships often come to mind. While the anti-whaling campaign remains iconic, it represents just one chapter in a much larger story. From the frozen ice floes of Newfoundland to the deep waters of the Atlantic and the industrial sites of South Africa, Greenpeace has deployed its signature blend of direct action, scientific research, and media savvy to expose environmental crimes and drive policy change across multiple fronts.

The anti-whaling crusade: confronting fleets on the high seas
Lobbying at the International Whaling Commission
Seal pups and celebrity activism: the Newfoundland campaign
Impact and controversy
Toxic waste: blocking the dumping of radioactive materials
Direct action against nuclear dumping
Connecting global dots: exposing transboundary environmental injustice
Investigation and exposure
Legal action and precedent-setting victory
A multi-faceted approach to global change

The anti-whaling crusade: confronting fleets on the high seas

Greenpeace’s first anti-whaling campaign launched on April 27, 1975, when a crew of activists set sail from Vancouver to confront Soviet whaling fleets in the North Pacific. Their mission was unprecedented in its boldness: physically positioning themselves between harpoon ships and their prey to prevent the slaughter of whales.

The strategy was brilliantly theatrical. Activists in small rubber inflatable rafts faced the enormous Soviet factory ship Dal’nii Vostok, creating what campaign leader Bob Hunter envisioned as a classic narrative of helpless individuals confronting a vast, mechanized evil. The dramatic footage that emerged shocked viewers worldwide-including a moment when a Soviet harpooner fired directly over Hunter’s head, nearly killing him.

This “mind bomb,” as Greenpeace called such media-friendly confrontations, proved devastatingly effective. The New York Times reported that for the first time in whaling history, humans had risked their lives to defend whales. The images sparked international outrage and built momentum for stricter regulations.

Lobbying at the International Whaling Commission

Direct action alone would not end commercial whaling. Greenpeace combined its dramatic confrontations with persistent lobbying at the International Whaling Commission. By the late 1970s, countries concerned about whale conservation began joining the IWC, gradually shifting the balance of power away from whaling nations.

In July 1982, the IWC voted to implement a global moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect in 1986. This ban remains one of the most significant conservation victories in modern history. Several whale species once on the verge of extinction have since begun recovering-humpback whale populations are increasing by 3 to 12 percent annually, depending on the region, while eastern gray whales have rebounded from just a few hundred individuals to more than 20,000.

Seal pups and celebrity activism: the Newfoundland campaign

While the whaling campaign captured headlines at sea, Greenpeace opened another front on the frozen ice floes off Canada’s Atlantic coast. The commercial seal hunt in Newfoundland had become increasingly controversial due to images of hunters clubbing whitecoat harp seal pups.

Paul Watson, a Greenpeace co-founder, helped organize the first campaign to protect East Coast seals in 1976. The following year, the campaign gained international attention when French film star Brigitte Bardot travelled to the ice floes to pose with baby seals and speak out against the hunt.

The iconic photographs of Bardot cradling a white-coated seal pup became some of the most recognizable images of the environmental movement. Greenpeace activists employed creative tactics, including spray-painting seal pups with green dye to ruin the commercial value of their pelts and using their own bodies to shield animals from hunters.

Impact and controversy

The campaign achieved a major victory in 1982 when the European Parliament introduced a ban on the import of seal skins and products into the European Economic Community. This devastated the market for seal pelts and effectively ended large-scale commercial sealing.

However, the victory came with unintended consequences. The ban rippled to remote Indigenous communities in Canada’s Arctic, closing off economic opportunities and culturally stigmatizing traditional Inuit seal hunting practices. This complex legacy has since prompted difficult conversations about how environmental campaigns can inadvertently harm Indigenous communities, even when targeting industrial-scale operations far removed from subsistence hunting.

Toxic waste: blocking the dumping of radioactive materials

Greenpeace had been campaigning against the disposal of radioactive waste in the ocean since 1978. For decades, European nations had treated the deep Atlantic as a convenient nuclear dustbin. Between the 1950s and 1990s, approximately 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste were dumped into the Northeast Atlantic by countries including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The practice was based on the assumption that the deep ocean floor was lifeless and that radioactive materials would be safely diluted by ocean currents. This assumption proved tragically wrong. Greenpeace activists documented the dumping operations, photographed rusting barrels on the seabed, and confronted waste-carrying ships at sea.

Direct action against nuclear dumping

In 1980, Greenpeace exposed the danger of radioactive waste shipments from Japan to nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield in the UK and La Hague in France. The Rainbow Warrior was arrested for obstructing ships at both ports. That same year, Greenpeace publicised the dumping of toxic waste into the North Sea by German chemical company Bayer AG.

In 1983, four Greenpeace divers were contaminated by radioactive discharge while attempting to block a pipe at Sellafield-a pipe releasing more than ten million litres of radioactive water into the sea daily. Though Greenpeace was fined for contempt, the operator was subsequently found guilty on four criminal charges for the discharge.

The sustained campaign paid off. The 1983 London Dumping Convention halted all ocean dumping of radioactive waste. In 1988, delegates agreed to ban ocean incineration of toxic waste entirely by 1994. The comprehensive 1993 ban on dumping radioactive and industrial waste at sea united thirty-seven countries in support of healthier oceans.

Connecting global dots: exposing transboundary environmental injustice

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Greenpeace’s evolution was its development of an international network capable of connecting local environmental crimes to global systems of corporate responsibility. This approach was powerfully demonstrated in the campaign against Thor Chemicals in South Africa.

Thor Chemicals operated the world’s largest mercury recovery plant in Cato Ridge, near Durban. The company received mercury-based waste from several chemical companies, including American Cyanamid and Borden Chemicals from the United States, as well as firms from the UK, Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Indonesia. Workers from impoverished surrounding communities, many refugees from political violence in Natal, handled deadly materials with inadequate protection and little understanding of the dangers.

Investigation and exposure

Earthlife Africa, working in collaboration with Greenpeace International, began compiling information on Thor’s activities and transgressions. The first warning signs emerged in 1988 when scientists found grossly deformed tadpoles with extremely high mercury levels in streams surrounding the plant.

In 1989, Earthlife Africa discovered the contamination, and Greenpeace International became involved in a campaign against the potentially lethal discharges. Researchers collected samples, documented contamination downstream near the township of Fredville, and educated affected communities about the risks they faced.

In the early 1990s, Greenpeace researchers found high levels of mercury in sediment downstream from the Thor factory. Soon afterward, human casualties began emerging-workers sent to hospital suffering from mercury poisoning, some dying after prolonged comas, others losing limbs as tissue died from contamination.

Legal action and precedent-setting victory

The coalition’s work extended across continents. Students, activists, farmers, local villagers, and a local chief all joined the campaign. Protest spread to the United States, where American Cyanamid and Borden Chemicals faced pressure from the public and investigation by the federal government. South African union leaders travelled abroad to demonstrate alongside their US counterparts.

In 1997, Thor in Britain settled out of court, paying victims R9.4 million in damages. This settlement established an important precedent for compensation claims by workers against British-based multinationals operating in other countries. The campaign contributed to making much of Africa off-limits for toxic waste dumping and helped strengthen international norms against the export of hazardous materials to developing nations.

A multi-faceted approach to global change

What made these campaigns effective was their combination of tactics. Scientific research provided irrefutable evidence of harm. Legal action tested culpability and created precedents. Media-savvy direct actions-from spray-painting seals to blocking discharge pipes to confronting waste ships-captured public attention and applied pressure that governments and corporations could not ignore.

Greenpeace’s international structure allowed activists to follow pollution across borders, exposing how wealthy nations exported environmental problems to poorer countries with weaker regulations. Whether tracking radioactive barrels sinking into the Atlantic or mercury-laden waste shipped to South Africa, the organization demonstrated that environmental justice requires global solidarity.

These campaigns, fought across decades and continents, transformed international environmental law and corporate accountability. The victories were never complete-whaling continues under various exceptions, and toxic waste still finds its way to developing nations. But the frameworks established through persistent pressure have provided foundations for ongoing protection of oceans, wildlife, and vulnerable communities worldwide.

What do you think? Can the tactics of direct action and media attention that proved so effective in the 1970s and 1980s still drive environmental change today, or do the challenges of climate change and global pollution require fundamentally different approaches?

References

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Beyond Whales: The Diverse Campaigns of Greenpeace in Europe and Worldwide

Table of Contents

The anti-whaling crusade: confronting fleets on the high seas 🔗

Lobbying at the International Whaling Commission 🔗

Seal pups and celebrity activism: the Newfoundland campaign 🔗

Impact and controversy 🔗

Toxic waste: blocking the dumping of radioactive materials 🔗

Direct action against nuclear dumping 🔗

Connecting global dots: exposing transboundary environmental injustice 🔗

Investigation and exposure 🔗

Legal action and precedent-setting victory 🔗

A multi-faceted approach to global change 🔗