© Getty Images

Greenpeace is created -

Greenpeace evolved out of the anti-nuclear organization Don't Make a Wave Committee, which was co-founded in 1969 by Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and Robert Hunter. It was Dorothy and Irving Stowe who would go on to create Greenpeace in 1971. Pictured is Jim Bohlen (left) with Irving Stowe (second right). With them is Greenpeace skipper John Cormack and Paul Cote (right) of the British Columbia branch of the Sierra Club, who's also credited with helping to create the NGO. The Greenpeace vessel was formerly the Phyllis Cormack, used as a fishing trawler.

© Getty Images 

First Greenpeace voyage -

The first Greenpeace protest voyage set sail on September 15, 1971 from Vancouver, Canada, bound for Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands to try and stop a US nuclear weapons test. Pictured on the left is Bob Hunter (who would later become president of Greenpeace International) on board the Phyllis Cormack with Greenpeace finance chief Hamish Bruce shortly before the vessel was renamed Greenpeace.

© Getty Images 

Benefit concert -

Greenpeace's Amchitka protest was funded by proceeds from a benefit concert held at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on October 16, 1970. Joni Mitchell and James Taylor (pictured), together with Phil Ochs, performed at the event, which was organized by Irving Stowe with the assistance of Joan Baez.

© Getty Images 

Setting sail for French Polynesia -

After Amchitka, Greenpeace shifted its focus on the French atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at the Moruroa atoll in French Polynesia. In 1972, David McTaggart skippered his own yacht Vega, renamed Greenpeace III, and sailed in an anti-nuclear protest into the exclusion zone at Moruroa.

© Getty Images

Banning the bomb -

In an attempt to stop him, French Navy commandos boarded the ketch and physically attacked McTaggart. After the assault was publicized, France announced it would stop the atmospheric nuclear tests. Pictured is a mushroom cloud after the explosion of a French atomic bomb above the atoll of Mururoa in 1971.

© Getty Images 

Campaign against cruelty -

By the mid-1970s, Greenpeace was actively campaigning against commercial whaling and mass seal culling. Pictured is a Greenpeace member covering a baby seal in an attempt to protect it from its hunters.

© Getty Images 

Rainbow Warrior -

In 1978, Greenpeace launched the original Rainbow Warrior. First deployed to disrupt the hunt of the Icelandic whaling fleet, Rainbow Warrior quickly became a mainstay of Greenpeace campaigns. In October 1978, the vessel successfully defended the gray seals of the Orkney Islands by chasing them into the water before hunters reached them. Pictured is David McTaggart at the helm of the vessel with Peter Bouquet, the boat's captain, during an October 1978 voyage.

© Getty Images 

Protecting seals -

Pictured: members of Greenpeace disembark the Rainbow Warrior in Newfoundland's pack ice in March 1982 to combat the yearly massacre of 15,000 seal pups. In an effort to save the animals, activists sprayed the coveted fur of the baby seals with paint, thus rendering useless their retail value.

© Getty Images 

Rongelap evacuation -

In 1985, Rainbow Warrior embarked on a Pacific peace voyage to the Marshall Islands, ostensibly to assist in the evacuation of the inhabitants of Rongelap, an island severely contaminated by fallout from US nuclear testing in the 1950s. The vessel made three trips to transfer 308 Rongelap islanders to the safer Majetto and Ebeye islands in Kwajalein atoll.

© Getty Images 

Sinking of Rainbow Warrior -

Also in 1985, French nuclear testing in the South Pacific again became the subject of controversy. Rainbow Warrior was to lead a flotilla of protest vessels into the waters surrounding Moruroa atoll, and was moored in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand, when the French government secretly bombed the ship.

© Getty Images 

Damaged beyond repair -

The July 10, 1985 explosion ripped through the hull, killing a Portuguese-Dutch freelance photographer, Fernando Pereira. The French authorities denied involvement but later in the year a British newspaper uncovered irrefutable proof of French President François Mitterrand's authorization of the bombing plan. Damaged beyond repair, Rainbow Warrior was scuttled and sunk in the crystalline waters of Matauri Bay in New Zealand and is now a popular dive site.

© Getty Images 

Rainbow Warrior II -

Greenpeace swiftly commissioned a replacement vessel, Rainbow Warrior II. Incidentally, the boat is named after a North American Cree Indian prophecy: "When the world is sick and dying, the people will rise up like Warriors of the Rainbow…" In April 1992, France canceled its nuclear testing program at Moruroa atoll.

© Getty Images 

Ban on driftnets -

In December 1989, a United Nations moratorium on high seas large-scale driftnets was passed in response to indiscriminate fishing practices exposed by Greenpeace. In 1991, a worldwide ban on driftnets came into force.

© Getty Images 

Halting dumping at sea -

Greenpeace had been actively opposing the dumping of harmful material at sea since the early 1980s. In 1993, the dumping of radioactive waste in the ocean was halted after the London Dumping Convention permanently banned the dumping at sea of radioactive and industrial waste worldwide.

© Getty Images 

Antarctic whale sanctuary -

Decades of protest by Greenpeace against whaling finally bore fruit in 1994 after the Antarctic whale sanctuary, proposed by France and supported by the environmental organization, was approved by the International Whaling Commission.

© Shutterstock 

Virgin Komi Forests -

In 1995, the Virgin Komi Forests in Russia were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO after a submission supported by Greenpeace for Komi's inclusion on the list was successful.

© Shutterstock 

Greenfreeze refrigerator -

For its development of Greenfreeze, a domestic refrigerator free of ozone depleting and significant global warming chemicals, Greenpeace was awarded the prestigious 1997 United Nations Environmental Programme Ozone Award. Pictured: the manufacture of the first Greenfreeze refrigerator by German firm DKK Scharfenstein.

© Getty Images 

Kyoto Protocol -

Greenpeace celebrated a major achievement in December 1997 when ministers from industrialized nations adopted the Kyoto Protocol, thereby agreeing to set legally-binding reduction targets on greenhouse gases. Greenpeace and similar organizations had been campaigning for urgent action to protect the climate since 1988.

© Shutterstock 

Saving the whale, again! -

In 2002, Greenpeace helped successfully block a major drive by pro-whaling nation Japan and its supporters to reintroduce commercial whaling through the International Whaling Commission.

© Getty Images 

Anti-war message -

Greenpeace was vocal in its January 2003 anti-war message and supported the actions of 30 million people worldwide in their opposition to military action in Iraq—the largest protest of its kind in history.

© Getty Images 

Amazon "eco-corridor" -

An 18-year campaign by the Deni, indigenous peoples of the Amazon, to mark their land as protected from logging ended in celebration when Greenpeace volunteers used GPS technology to demarcate their homeland—around 3.6 million hectares of land—to create a protected "eco-corridor."

© Getty Images 

Ending the shipbreaking industry -

Efforts by Greenpeace to achieve tighter regulations governing the notorious shipbreaking industry resulted in a 2004 international agreement to treat obsolete vessels as waste. In the photograph, Bangladeshi workers carry a piece of steel after dismantling it from a ship without basic protection and at risk from harmful chemical pollution.

© Getty Images 

Great Bear Rain Forest -

Ten years of campaigning and activism by a network of ENGOs including Greenpeace paid off when the Great Bear Rain Forest on the Pacific coast of British Columbia was saved from destruction in 2006. One of the largest remaining tracts of unspoiled temperate rain forest left in the world, the area is home to the unique Kermode ("spirit") bear, among other wildlife.

© Shutterstock 

"Green my Apple" -

The Greenpeace "Green my Apple" campaign was concluded in 2009 when the tech giant agreed to remove toxic PVC plastic from its new MacBook and iMac computers. Apple products thereafter became safer, easier to recycle, and caused less pollution at the end of their life.

© Getty Images 

One million signatures -

Greenpeace and non-profit organization Avaaz delivered one million signatures calling for a moratorium on genetically-modified crops to the EU commission in Brussels in December 2010. Agricultural biodiversity that is GM free represented the way most Europeans wanted their food.

© Getty Images 

Rainbow Warrior III -

In August 2011 Rainbow Warrior II was retired to be replaced by a third-generation vessel, Rainbow Warrior III. State-of-the-art facilities include advanced telecommunication equipment, specialized scientific equipment, and a helicopter landing pad. It's also designed to be one of the "greenest" ships afloat, running primarily using wind power.

© Getty Images 

Celebrity endorsement -

After Rainbow Warrior III arrived in London, Damon Albarn of British band Blur performed a gig on board the vessel on the River Thames. Greenpeace enjoys the patronage of many celebrities, names that include Madonna, Javier Bardem, Jude Law, and Annie Lennox.

© Getty Images 

Protecting the vaquita -

For years, Greenpeace and other ENGOs in Mexico campaigned for the urgent protection of the vaquita, a critically-endangered species of porpoise. In 2015, the president of Mexico instigated a ban on all fishing methods that could further threaten this rare marine mammal. It's seen here in a photograph taken by Paula Olson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

© Public Domain

"Eating less meat improves the climate" -

In October 2019, citizens in 14 global cities including Barcelona (pictured) celebrated the Food Declaration signed at the C40 Global Mayors Summit calling for a significant reduction in meat consumption in public institutions by 2030. This followed after a call to action by 200 scientists around the world co-initiated by Greenpeace.

Sources: (Greenpeace) (History) (European Commission) (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition) (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) (Columbia University) (CNET) (Look to the Stars) (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)  

See also: Simple lifestyle changes that help the environment

© Getty Images