Origins and Formation
In 1974 the ship La Flor, from Melbourne, Australia, skippered by Rolf Heimann, a children's author, set out for Mururoa via New Zealand as Greenpeace IV but arrived after the final nuclear test for the year.
An activist group, the Whale and Dolphin Coalition, formed in Sydney by Australian photographer Jonny Lewis and French businessman Jean-Paul Fortom-Gouin, invited Canadian Bob Hunter, Greenpeace co-founder and its first president, and his wife Bobbi, Greenpeace's first treasurer, to Australia in 1977. They needed their expertise honed in the North Pacific against the Soviet whaling fleet.
Greenpeace's first direct action in Australia opened on 28 August 1977, at Albany, Western Australia against Australia's last whaling station. Over the next three weeks, Lewis, Fortom-Gouin, Bob Hunter and Australians Tom Barber and Allan Simmons used Zodiacs to place themselves between the harpoons of the three whale chaser ships and sperm whales up to 30 miles offshore. There were two near misses with harpoons but no injuries.
The Whale and Dolphin Coalition then morphed into Greenpeace Australia with animal rights campaigner Richard Jones registering the entity and Sydney journalist Jodi Adams becoming Greenpeace Australia's first coordinator. The organisation's first assets included a Zodiac from the Albany campaign.
Australians harpooned their last whale—a female sperm whale—on 20 November 1978. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company ended operations the next day.
Read more about this topic: Greenpeace Australia Pacific
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