As borders and definitions dissolve, protecting the 'environment' is increasingly a test of democracy

'Environment' can no longer be meaningfully separated from health, quality of life, democracy, education, economy or trade. Citizens can act across borders, for or against international brands, not just via the media but increasingly direct, independent of 'the media', via the internet.

Those who bemoan the loss of government power through globalisation, should realise that the people are now beginning to catch up with the influence of multinational companies and previously unaccountable 'global' institutions.

In 1998 (see Bye bye, Brent Spar) Shell finally acknowledged the imperative of public opinion and began bringing the redundant Brent Spar ashore for recycling. In the same year, the bureaucrats of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development saw their plans for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment fatally wounded by a network of citizens groups mostly organised through the internet.

In Lebanon, local people joined a Greenpeace protest against an incinerator spreading dioxins, leading the press to call it an 'ecological Intafada'. Our Mediterranean Board includes Jews and Moslems. But while Israeli and Lebanese activists fight side by side against the dumping of toxic sludge at sea, they can't even talk on the telephone.

After its handover to China, the Hong Kong government declared that political organisations financed from abroad would not be accepted - but environmental organisations were not regarded as such. Yet to protect the environment ('even' if it is 'only' the quality of drinking water) raises questions such as access to independent sources of information, often the frontline challenge to governments. Protecting the environment also highlights responsibility and accountability: achieving a clean river means disempowering the polluter. The struggle to confirm the right to a decent environment was part of the transformation to a civil society in eastern Europe. The same struggle has been at the forefront of change in places such as Indonesia and Taiwan, and will continue to be so.

Greenpeace has no national interest. It draws its power not from its obvious attributes such as ships or a network of offices, supporter databases or even its communications capacity. Greenpeace's real power lies outside Greenpeace, in the hearts and minds of people who find it an inspiration for change. This is the only real 'secret' of Greenpeace: its actions are based not just on clever strategy but on values that are shared with the public, and the public is the judge.

Looking forward, I see Greenpeace doing more to help citizens exercise their power as consumers and freedoms as individuals. As we approach the millennium we must help our children by dumping not waste but the waste-making bankrupt technologies of the twentieth century, in favour of the host of solutions that are there to be used.


Thilo Bode, Executive Director, Greenpeace International

The most obvious but not necessarily the most significant things about Greenpeace are our attributes - our ships, our planes, our communication capability and our campaigns: Antarctica, the Amazon, solar power, stopping oil exploration, opposing nuclear developments or release of GM crops. And, of course, our name.

The essence of Greenpeace's work is harder to express in words than to capture in events or pictures. It has something to do with respect for nature, freedom and truth.

Our core, immutable values are shared not just with staff and activists but supporters. They include independence, non-violence, bearing witness and commitment to peace and the well being of the natural world. These are our principles.

At times when the organisation is tested, Greenpeace's character comes to the surface. Optimistic, brave and deeply committed, not just managing environmental abuse but eliminating it. These are the characteristics of individual direct action.

More generally you see our personality - our way of doing things. Radical, dogged, determined, often confrontational, and enthusiastic. These are the characteristics of Greenpeace campaigns.