Successes

Our first ever campaign, launched with the founding of Greenpeace in 1971, ultimately resulted in a global ban of nuclear weapons testing. Since then, we’ve played a pivotal role in a number of successes on the way to a greener, juster and more peaceful world, including:

- the adoption of a ban on toxic waste exports to less developed countries
- a moratorium on commercial whaling
- a United Nations convention providing for better management of world fisheries
- a Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
- a 50-year moratorium on mineral exploitation in Antarctica
- bans on the dumping at sea of radioactive and industrial waste and disused oil installations and
- an end to large-scale driftnet fishing on the high-seas.

Below are just a few of the positive environmental changes that Greenpeace has helped to bring about in the last few years (for a more comprehensive list, have a browse through our history). Every one of these successes was made possible by the generous financial help of our supporters.

The long, hard slog to protect Canada's Great Bear Rainforest

Posted by tamarastark - 3 April 2009 at 4:13pm - Comments

The Koeye river delta in the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia

Saved! The Koeye river delta in the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia © Mauthe/Greenpeace

Tamara is communications director here in the UK, but in a previous life was a Greenpeace forest campaigner in both Canada and China.

An era ended for me this week when the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia finally protected my extraordinarily beautiful Great Bear Rainforest. Today, more than one-third of the largest intact area of temperate rainforest left in the world is legally off-limits to logging - an area half the size of Switzerland. For many people it's a pretty emotional moment.

I say "my" somewhat facetiously, because clearly I'm conscious of the fact that this is a global treasure that belongs to us all. And yet because I'm from British Columbia, and because the Great Bear campaign is where I cut my teeth as a campaigner, it feels a bit like it is my forest. It was a long, hard slog to get to this week, I must say, but along the way we 'baby' campaigners certainly learned a lot.

Article tagged as: canada, clearcutting, deforestation, forests, great bear rainforest, north america, successes

Success! Polish coal mine construction halted

Posted by jossc - 13 March 2009 at 11:10am - Comments

Greenpeace climbers make their point at Jozwin II B open cast mine site last December

Greenpeace climbers making their point at the Jozwin II B site last December

Great news just in from Poland, where work on the giant Jóźwin IIB open-cast pit and coal mine near Konin has been suspended. Following a legal challenge submitted last December by Greenpeace, a Polish court has ruled that there were problems with the environmental assessment process undertaken before work began on the site. Construction has now been halted while the process is reviewed.

This is a big victory - Jóźwin IIB was the site for our most recent Climate Rescue Station, set up last winter to remind delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in nearby Poznań that tackling climate change and building new coal-fired power stations are fundamentally incompatible aspirations. It will be particularly well-received by many of the peaceful activists who were attacked by mine workers at the end of last year during the protests.

Article tagged as: climate change, co2 emissions, coal, fossil fuels, open-cast, poland, poznan, successes

Success! Philips make a recycling policy u-turn

Posted by jossc - 26 February 2009 at 3:27pm - Comments

An old Philips TV at a scrap yard in Ghana

Last week we broke the shocking story about what actually happens to our electronic waste; instead of being safely recycled in the UK or Europe, much of it is instead being exported as 'second-hand goods' to places like Nigeria, China and India. Once there it's either sold for scrap, illegally dumped, or broken apart for recycling by some of the poorest people in the country, with no safety measures to protect them from the dangerous toxic chemicals like mercury, cadmium and lead which the e-waste contains.

Article tagged as: africa, e-waste, nigeria, philips, successes, toxic chemicals, toxics, TVs

Waiting for Apple to meet 'computer detox' promise

Posted by jossc - 7 January 2009 at 3:40pm - Comments

Green My Apple logo

Apple's detox promise: close but not quite there yet

Mac fans in our office (and there are more than a few) were getting excited yesterday - we were expecting an announcement from MacWorld 2009 in San Francisco, confirming that Apple would as promised be removing all toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from its entire new product range.

Confidence was high that this was going to happen because we've had the word from the man himself - Apple CEO Steve Jobs - from as far back as May 2007 that toxic PVC and BFRs in Mac computers would be history by the end of 2008. His enthusiam for the subject, of course, initially stemmed from the success of our Green my Apple campaign, which generated huge support and discussion from Mac addicts worldwide.

Article tagged as: apple, bfr, computers, e-waste, green electronics guide, greenmyapple, PVC, successes, toxics

Success! Ferrero supports the palm oil moratorium

Posted by bex - 10 July 2008 at 2:30pm - Comments

Primary rainforest in Central Kalimantan in Indonesia
Primary rainforest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. © Davison/Greenpeace

Regular visitors to our website might have noticed that a few days ago, we launched a cyber action against the Italian company Ferrero, a major user of palm oil and maker of Nutella and Ferrero Rocher.

Well, we’re delighted to report that, before we even had the chance to email our supporters about it, we’ve had another success in the protection of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands - and of the threatened species that live there and, of course, the climate.