International Environmental NGOs

Greenpeace

Greenpeace, founded in 1971, is a global campaigning organization with branches in 42 countries and a total constituency of more than 2.5 million. The Dutch and German branches are among its largest, each with 500,000-plus supporters, as are the British and the North American branches, each with about 250,000 supporters.

The origin of Greenpeace is in the peace rather than the environmental movement. Its very first target was the United States testing nuclear devices in Amchitka, Alaska, and nuclear weapons have been a topic of contention ever since. In 1995, Greenpeace's ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed by the French army after it entered the waters of the Moruroa atoll in the South Pacific to prevent French nuclear testing.

Greenpeace has played a pivotal role in the adoption of a ban on toxic waste exports to less developed countries, a moratorium on commercial whaling, and bans on the dumping at sea of radioactive and industrial waste. Present priorities include climate change, preservation of the oceans, tropical rain forests, sustainable agriculture, and toxic chemicals. Greenpeace tries to reach its goals by lobbying, by scientific research, and, most of all, by its unconventional action repertoire. Due to its sophisticated communication strategy, Greenpeace has been very successful in raising environmental consciousness.

World Wide Fund for Nature

The WWF, founded in 1961, is the world's largest conservation organization with a joint constituency of more than 5 million. Its largest national branches include the North American and the Dutch ones, each with about 1 million supporters. WWF started as a conservation organization with hundreds of conservation projects, mainly in southern countries, such as the restoration of orangutan habitats and the establishment of panda reserves. In the past couple of decades, it has gradually broadened its mission to stopping the degradation of the planet's natural environment, resulting in coverage of topics such as pollution and climate change. However, contrary to Greenpeace, WWF never applies confrontational action strategies.

Friends of the Earth International

FoEI is the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 69 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on almost every continent. FoEI has more than 2 million members and supporters worldwide; among its largest branches are the German, the British, and the Dutch ones. FoEI's ideological base [Page 1613]could be summarized as “political ecology”: FoEI challenges the current model of economic and corporate globalization. To protect the Earth against further environmental degradation, FoEI aims to increase public participation and democratic decision making and to stimulate grassroots activism.

...