Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

The National-led Government is declaring its true environmental colours and green seems to be missing from the palette.

Over the last few months it has revealed a pro-mining mindset, it’s looking to increase the quota on our critically endangered southern blue fin tuna and now it’s advocating a deal that would allow a return to commercial whaling.

Last weekend former NZ Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer tried to broker a deal at a meeting of a small working group of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales including in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.  A final decision is expected in June. Read more »

Reyes, one of our agriculture campaigners in India, shares her immediate thoughts on this ‘first-of-its-kind’ admission by Monsanto

This was my Saturday’s lyrics to breakfast in sunny Bangalore: Monsanto has decided to tell the truth about something: its technology doesn’t work!, reports The Hindu. I’m going to need a second cup of chai to digest this, Monsanto speaking honest!? Indian farmers and scientist have been seeing this in their Bt cotton fields for a few years: pests become resistant to Monsanto’s genetically engineered toxins and thus farmers apply huge amounts of pesticides. Monsanto has always denied this, has the recent massive rejection of its Bt brinjal in India woken up its senses?

Read more »

For some reason there is a persistent group of people who either want to deny, or are not aware, that there is a solid scientific foundation to the overwhelming consensus on climate change.

Of course the fact is that climate science is built on thousands of publications and many decades of observation. Spending too much time arguing with climate deniers is an annoying distraction from actually doing something about the causes of climate change.

This video provides a useful summary of the fundamental discoveries, the basic facts that we know beyond a doubt, about global warming.

The media has been buzzing about the IPCC’s Himalayan glacier controversy.

The international climate panel headed by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for a ground-breaking report on climate change. Several small errors have now surfaced in the 3,000-page report.

If you’re wondering what the news reports mean for climate change, here are some answers. Please spread the word to your family, friends, and co-workers. Read more »

A right-wing publication in Japan has made a manga cartoon of the Tokyo Two trial with their own twist on the proceedings – clearly taking the side of the whaling industry.

This defensive spin is something we always take as a good sign because when we provoke this kind of reaction – we’re being taken seriously as a threat. The right-wing media’s obvious resistance to putting government corruption in the spotlight just demonstrates how far we’ve come with this case already and we haven’t even brought witnesses to the stand yet.

What’s funny is that they portray the support for the Greenpeace case with “silence” at the end. Now either someone isn’t paying close enough attention or they are trying to convince the Japanese public that nobody is supporting Junichi and Toru despite overwhelming support from more than 400,000 people across the world since Juichi and Toru were arrested. This included human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Nobel Prize Winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Betty Williams together with celebrities such as Bryan Adams, William Shatner, Thandie Newton and Benicio Del Toro. Read more »

Bill Gates calls for zero carbon emissions by 2050. Photo: Nancy Duarte.

Bill Gates, when asked to give “the talk of his life – in 18 minutes” at the TED Talks conference last week, set a startling precedent for business leaders, choosing energy and climate as his subject – by calling for nothing less than zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Gates’ commitment to stopping climate change couldn’t come at a more urgent juncture and it’s a major development for 3 reasons. Read more »

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior once said

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”

After acting on this fundamental principle, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, now known as the Tokyo 2, currently risk their freedom for simply having acted in the interest of the Japanese people by exposing an embezzlement scandal in the whaling industry, and calling on the government to investigate it.

Take action to support the Junichi and Toru here

As the trial date of February 15, 2010 approaches, a recent report of the Working group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) of the of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has concluded that the Japanese government breached a series of internationally guaranteed human rights by detaining Junichi and Toru, who had uncovered major corruption in the whaling programme. In observing that the rights of the two men have been breached by the justice system, the Tokyo Two and Greenpeace’s position on this issue has now been vindicated and corroborated by the competent United Nations body through its report. With this, we hope that the court takes due care to judge the case fairly.

The Working Group noted that the principal and only motivation behind their actions was the greater public interest, as they sought to expose criminal embezzlement. It recognises that they willingly cooperated with the police and the Public Prosecutor, that this cooperation was not acknowledged, and that the Government did not itself submit any essential information, such as details of their activities as environmental activists, the investigation they carried out, the evidence they gathered or the help they gave to authorities to formally investigate their allegations. Read more »

Part 1

Part 2

2009 has been a hard year for everyone, and we wouldn’t have made it without our supporters. We would like to thank you for sticking with us through the tough times, and hope you’ll be staying with us in the future. You can read the wrap-up from the Copenhagen climate summit here. World leaders walked away without a treaty that protects the climate. They’re not done yet, but neither are we so waych this space!

On behalf of all Greenpeace:  Thank you.