DAVID FRASER McTAGGART
This is archive material. For the latest news and information visit Greenpeace International.
David McTaggart was Chairperson of Greenpeace International from
1979 to 1991. The Canadian businessman had become involved with the issue of French
atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in New Zealand in 1972.
David McTaggart was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 24, 1932.
As a youth he was an outstanding athlete whose interests included skiing, tennis,
squash, and golf. He won the Canadian National Badminton championship in the
singles division three years running.
He worked in the construction business for twenty years, moving to the United
States in the 1960s where he became a successful contractor and developer. When
an explosion destroyed a resort lodge built by his firm, seriously injuring
an employee, the deeply affected McTaggart left the business and went into semi-
retirement, sailing for pleasure in the Pacific. In 1971 he became outraged
with the French Government's decision to cordon off a vast swath of international
waters in order to conduct their nuclear testing program in the Pacific. He
renamed his 12.6 meter sailing craft "Greenpeace III" and sailed to the zone
surrounding Moruroa Atoll.
In 1977 he began organizing new support throughout Europe for Greenpeace,
by then established in more than a dozen countries. In 1979 he forged an international
alliance between separate factions of the organization and united them under
his chairmanship as Greenpeace International.
Between 1975 and 1991, David McTaggart has been a driving force behind Greenpeace
campaigns to save the whales, to stop the dumping of nuclear waste in the ocean,
to block the production of toxic wastes, to end nuclear testing, and to protect
the Antarctic continent from oil and mineral exploitation. Over the length of
his career he has published numerous articles and two books. Awards for his
contributions to environmentalism worldwide include the Onassis Award, The Kreisky
Prize, and the United Nations Environmental Programme's Global 500 Award.
In September of 1991, David McTaggart retired from active chairmanship of Greenpeace International to a farm in Italy, where he raised organic olive oil and continued to work on whaling and other issues through his own foundation.
Mr. McTaggart died in an auto accident on March 23, 2001 near his home in Italy.
Press release: Greenpeace
mourns the death of great environmental warrior
David McTaggart testimonial