Criticism of Greenpeace - Prominent Critics

Prominent Critics

Paul Watson, who was pushed out of Greenpeace's board of directors in the 1970s and later founded Sea Shepherd, once called Greenpeace "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement," because of their door-to-door fund-raising that relies on media exposure of deliberately orchestrated and highly publicized actions to keep the name of Greenpeace on the front pages.

Bradley Angel, who organized communities in California and Arizona for Greenpeace, left the organization to found Greenaction in 1997. Greenpeace had summarily shut down its community-building operations, terminating more than 300 employees in the US alone, in what Angel called "a betrayal".

Another prominent critic of Greenpeace is Icelandic filmmaker Magnús Guðmundsson, director of the documentary Survival in the High North. Gudmundsson's criticisms focus largely on the social impact of anti-whaling and anti-sealing campaigns despite the native people of Iceland, Greenland and Canada's dependence on these activities for subsistence. After lobbying efforts by Greenpeace, Guðmundsson's documentary was judged to be libellous by a Norwegian court in 1992, and he was ordered to pay damages to Greenpeace. A Danish tribunal held that allegations that Greenpeace faked video materials were unfounded. Media sources who published Guðmundsson's allegations, including TVNZ and the Irish Sunday Business Post, subsequently retracted and apologized.

Canadian ecologist Patrick Moore, a former Greenpeace founding member, is also a critic of the organization. Moore's main criticisms have been leveled at the campaign to protect the forests of British Columbia.