GREENPEACE FOUNDATION

Real Issues.

JOIN THE FIGHT

We inherited a wonderful world of bountiful life and ecological resources, unique in the universe.

Yet we’ve entered what scientists expect to be the Sixth major mass extinction event of the last half-billion years. Species are being driven extinct at up to 10,000 times the normal background rate, with large complex species going first. The atmosphere and ocean are changing faster than ever before in our planet’s history, toward a state which has not existed since we and other large animals evolved. We have been born into this time and situation, and may make it worse or better.

As you read this, a fight is going on. A tough, winner-take-all fight for some of the most beautiful and important species in the sea and on land. On the side of “business as usual” are governments, multinational corporations, corrupt treaties, and organized crime.

Our ally is you.

Covid19 isn’t the only issue...

There’s a reason you think of the Greenpeace movement at times like this. It’s about standing up for life. Talk is great, but results often require positive action and engagement.

We are all adjusting to life with a novel coronavirus, and very appropriately taking steps to safeguard our vulnerable populations, even thought it’s difficult. But let’s not forget that there is a plague of full-on species extinctions stalking our world and accelerating. As we reflect on our own vulnerability, let’s spare a few thoughts for species with no way to survive aside from our caring and commitment. GPF is a tool to help you make that happen.

Greenpeace Foundation has been a pioneer on many issues. It was either the first, or one of the first, organizations to work on a host of important issues. These include commercial whaling, illegal whaling, dolphin drive kills, mass destruction from driftnet fisheries, ending porpoise “research” kills, obtaining critical habitat for endangered seals, and many others.

We’ve been there. Saving whales, dolphins, seals and marine species. Confronting destructive fisheries on the high seas. Exposing organized-crime trafficking in endangered species. Taking direct and legal action to protect critical wildlife habitat. Bringing good science to bear on corrupt treaty organizations.

Because sometimes, by doing that, you can win.

Donate NOW to Join the Fight!

TAKE A STAND WITH US

Our message is simple: we won’t always win. But we won’t always lose, either.

Unless we really engage with these issues – together, with resolve, creatively and positively – we will definitely lose. We need to become inspired, individually and as tribes, nations and a species. To dare to see clearly and act in a way which will make future generations proud. Because those future generations and their living world are terribly vulnerable now, and utterly depending on those of us now living.

Join with us. You may not be able to shield a whale from a harpoon, go undercover to bust wildlife traffickers, or personally make sure wildlife laws are followed. But your support will make a difference.

The Sixth Extinction is only beginning. It’ll be the biggest challenge in the history of human existence, but we may yet turn it aside. We just need to begin.

Now.

Thanks for bearing with us as we upgrade the website….

old gp site header

The old website was showing its age, and was written in “coldfusion”, which is outmoded at this point, so we’ve upgraded it to a more responsive format which can be more easily viewed on mobile devices. More of the deeper content will be migrated over in coming days. We hope you’ll find it smoother to navigate. If you see something that looks like it’s experimental, it probably is! Trying out various aspects of WordPress software and getting feedback.

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WHO WE ARE

Greenpeace Foundation is a no-nonsense advocate for species conservation and biodiversity on a healthy planet. It is grounded both in science and in a reverence for life. It exists to help dedicated people make a difference in the world through smart, gutsy work; good science; and “bearing witness” to environmental problems to bring them into public scrutiny. Its primary focus is the marine ecosystem; and interaction of human activity with that ecosystem. It has taken up marine mammal and fisheries issues as important indicators of health of the seas. Greenpeace Foundation’s work is based on innovation, action, efficiency and accountability in the service of life.

Learn More

Click the Images to go to Campaigns:

WHAT WE DO

Greenpeace Foundation’s main focus has been saving whales, dolphins, and other threatened marine species from ill-advised human activities; and protecting the global ocean ecosystem. We are now also engaging with the 6th Extinction, which involves species on land and sea, and the human future. The Greenpeace Foundation currently has several campaigns in progress – strong efforts to save our damaged seas. Find out more about our campaigns and get involved!

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GET INVOLVED

CONTRIBUTE
If only a fraction of the people who cared about saving the seas pledged 10% of their salaries towards the work, the benefits to the whales, dolphins, and seas would be enormous. You don’t have to quit your job to be a hero for the environment.
VOLUNTEER
Be an online volunteer from your home or office! If you’ve got a computer, a modem, and time you’d like to dedicate to the environment and its wildlife, you may be able to help get valuable campaign work done. To get more information and help us find out more about you, contact us at this address with a brief e-mail about your skills, time available, motivating issues, and other resources.
CAMPAIGN
If you travel a lot, speak more than one language, know how to use a camera or videocam, have other field skills and don’t mind putting yourself on the line for the issues you believe in, contact us at this address to discuss the possibilities of your becoming a volunteer Greenpeace field campaigner. Often risky, sometimes satisfying, always important. Or you can sponsor a campaign (on the donations page) to keep the work alive.

LEARN MORE ABOUT

DOLPHIN SAFE CAMPAIGN
The campaign for a dolphin-safe tuna fishery, which Greenpeace Foundation has worked on as a core issue since 1976, is not permanently won. Dolphins are still dying in tuna nets, due to a U.S. bailout of dolphin-killing nations, and U.S. legislation which gutted U.S. dolphin-protection law and would fraudulently re-define the term “dolphin safe.”
ANTI-WHALING CAMPAIGN
Whales are incredible, intelligent animals whose numbers have been cruelly decimated by industrial whaling. Greenpeace Foundation is dedicated to an end to all whaling. It was a founder of the global anti-whaling movement, and has worked for three decades in this cause, seeking out, uncovering, and exposing the reality, cruelty – and often illegality – of whaling. Much has been accomplished, but the whales aren’t saved yet.
THE JAPAN DOLPHIN KILL CAMPAIGN
Greenpeace Foundation originally helped define the Japan dolphin-saving issue for the world. Now we are working to end “drive kills” and “harpoon fisheries”. We’re also investigating to expose and end the growing practice of selling dolphin as “whale meat”, which defrauds the Japanese consumer, creates a lucrative black market, and encourages international trade in dead dolphins.
DRIFTNET CAMPAIGN
Driftnetting is the most destructive form of fishing ever devised. 40-mile-long nets are laid in a straight line, 50 feet deep. Laid perpendicular to fish and marine animal migrations, they float like invisible unbreakable spider webs, catching everything which cannot swim through a mesh size as small as 4″. Driftnets can strip-mine the life out of an area in only a few seasons, leaving a lifeless watery desert. Greenpeace Foundation created the fight to ban them, a fight still in progress to save whales, seals, dolphins, seabirds, turtles, and hundreds of other species – including the overfished “target” fish species.
MONK SEAL CAMPAIGN
The most endangered seal species on earth – actually an endangered genus – is the Monk Seal. All global populations are now considered extinct except for fragile populations based on remote isles in the North Pacific and in caves in the Mediterranean. Although living in remote areas, their populations have been brought to the threshold of extinction by man’s activities. We’re working to help them survive.

IN THE NEWS

Bowhead Whales are by far the oldest living mammals!

There are bowhead whales now alive who were born before Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps George Washington.

It turns out that these endangered whales, which were driven to near extinction by commercial whaling, and which are still harpooned by U.S. and Siberian native communities, are the oldest large-brained creatures yet discovered. This has taken scientists, and pretty much everyone else, by surprise.

The bowhead (Balaena mysticetus) had long been assumed to live to be perhaps 50-60 years old. However, recently-killed bowheads, when carefully examined, have been found to often have ancient harpoon tips lodged in their blubber, and the only way they could have gotten “in there” was in the hands of ancient native harpooners.

This finding spurred research to find out just HOW old these whales may be. Scientist Jeffrey L. Bada and his associates analyzed the ration of 2 mirror forms of aspartic acid in the lenses of bowhead eyes, which changes at a measurable rate over the years. The results on the five males whales tested showed that the YOUNGEST was 90, four ranged in age from 135-180, and one was seemingly over 211 years old when recently harpooned.

That the average age of these whales was over 150, and that even a 200+ year old whale didnt “look” that old, has implications for the biology and conservation of these whales. It also raises the question of just how old a bowhead can get, since the odds are good that the oldest one wasnt among these five. Researchers have speculated mostly off the record that there may be incredibly old whales swimming around the arctic seas, since they dont seem to have any natural lifespan we can yet determine; the deaths we know of are all human-caused.

This underscores how little we really know about whales, and that includes other whale species. If not for the eskimo spearpoints in these whales, and the fact that this was noted by scientists, the analysis of the whales age wouldnt have even been done.

It also is an amazing thing to think about: large-brained, probably self-aware amimals sharing this planet with us, who have a personal memory of events 200 years ago, and perhaps much father back than that. Is turning them into blubber slabs and souvenir items really the best way to treat the oldest intelligent residents of planet earth?