Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Adrian Leason was one of the three ploughshares activists acquitted by a jury recently in the Waihopi Spy base story. Following the verdict, Leason summed up what has been a long and proud history of non-violent direct action in New Zealand:

we broke laws that protect plastic, in order to protect people

Articulate, considered, bang on.

A riot of unthinking reactionary nonsense erupted from people who we’ve come to expect to make a noise rather than a contribution. People like Paul Holmes carried out their usual inflammatory attacks, forecasting the end of democracy if we didn’t do something about these criminals (or at the very least their wardrobes). But there were also some who, given there positions, should have made more of an effort to understand history before they opened their mouths. People like Prime Minister John Key who’s contribution was an assertion that Government should look at changing the law to remove this most important tenant of our legal system, the ‘claim of right’ defense. Read more »

The NZ economy is founded on a clean, green reputation, yet Prime Minister John Key and his National Government is seriously endangering that reputation. Firstly by increasing NZ’s catch quota  of critically endangered bluefin tuna, then by supporting a deal that would allow commercial whaling, and now by announcing plans to mine precious conservation land and national parks including Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel and Paparoa National Park.

What’s at stake with the mining proposals goes to the heart of the global climate issue. Putting short term profit ahead of the long term well being of the economy and the environment is a 19th century mindset, best summed up by the old phrase:. “Rip, shit and bust”.  We’re seeing this mentality across a range of Government decisions, from increasing the catch of endangered fish species, to subsidising polluters, to supporting commercial whaling.
Read more »

Greenpeace NZ oceans campaigner Karli Thomas sums up the state of the whales campaign.

Despite (and thanks to) Nestle’s attempt to supress our Kit Kat video it has now been viewed around  750,000 and over 100,000 e-mails have been sent to Nestlé.

Yet Mr. Bulcke is failing to address the concerns that people like you have raised about Nestlé’s continued use of palm oil from rainforest destruction.

Have you already sent your message? If not, please add your voice – let Nestlé and Mr. Bulcke know that they are not doing enough to stop palm oil from destroyed forests and peatlands from being used in their products.

If you’ve already sent your e-mail and are ready to do more to ask Nestlé to give rainforests a break – then please join others in picking up the phone.

People began to make direct calls to Nestlé customer service lines all over the world on Wednesday and the calls are continuing now! Click here to find all the information you need to talk to Nestlé directly – plus some of the experiences shared by those who have already made their phone calls.

The support for this campaign has been amazing over the past week! Views on our video are still rising – please continue to share it with your online networks. The more people who see this video, e-mail the company, and pick up the phone, the more pressure Nestlé will feel to act.

Keep it up!

Thank you again from everyone at Greenpeace working – together with you – on making the Kit Kat campaign such a success.

You can find out more about what others have been doing to support this campaign online here.

Remember the good old days when we tried to save the whales? Well those days are back, and there’s a shirt to prove it. While the whales have never been completely safe there has, at least, been a moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986. But now that’s starting to look under threat. Just a couple of weeks ago New Zealand sided with countries talking up a proposal to return to commercial whaling, using the logic that to save whales you have kill some in the first place.

The National-led Government seems to be suffering from a bad case of environmental amnesia, but Kiwis are uniting to remind it of our proud role in whale conservation.

The breadth of feeling on this issue extends from Whale Watch Kaikoura to politicians, to a joint petition NGO petition that we’re involved with and today Mr Vintage t-shirts showed it’s support for the whales by releasing a new design based on ‘save the whales’ artwork from last century. How apt!

Well, great work everyone! You’ve taken our Kit Kat campaign and made it your own and we have stood back in awe of it all.

In only 20 hours 13 or more versions of the video uploaded by you have had 40,000 views on Youtube.com and another 104.000 on Vimeo!

On Nestle’s facebook page: “I’m not a fan by the way, I just want to say…”

Nestle has been taking some flack on its facebook group – become a “fan” there and you can add your comments to the debate. Like Rosanna Pimm: “not a fan, just want you to STOP your contribution to forest destruction and cut the Sinar Mas group from its palm oil supply chain completely”; and Gerri Mills: “I am not a fan! stop using palm oil, start caring for people, animals and the environment”; or Katherine Russell: “I too WAS a fan, now I wouldn’t touch a nestle product if there was nothing else to eat” and David Inns “No more milo for me.” Well said everybody!

Nestle has responded to the complaints saying “we’re concerned too. We care about the serious environmental threat to rainforests in South East Asia and as we said yesterday, we have replaced the Indonesian company Sinar Mas as a supplier of palm oil for further shipments.” Read more »

Today, the world’s leading food and drinks company, Nestlé, had Greenpeace’s new video removed from YouTube. This is an apparent attempt to silence the truth that some of its most popular brands use palm oil from destroyed rainforests and peatlands. Turned out to be a bad move. The video has now gone viral. It’s out in the wild and can never be tamed.

We’ve now stuck the video on Vimeo. So, without further ado, here’s the video that offended Nestlé so. Can you work out why?

Read more »

We all like a break, but the orang-utans of Indonesia don’t seem to be able to get one. We have new evidence which shows that Nestlé – the makers of Kit Kat – are using palm oil produced in areas where the orang-utans’ rainforests once grew. Even worse, the company doesn’t seem to care.

So the Greenpeace orang-utans have been despatched to Nestlé head offices in the UK to let employees know the environmental crimes their company is implicated in, and begin an international campaign to have Nestlé give us all a break. Read more »