In response to the "desperate bid" by Federated Farmers to curtail Greenpeace, the environmental heavyweight has issued a correction to the agri-industry lobby group’s "scurrilous complaint" made to the Charities Commission yesterday.

Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Niamh O’Flynn says, "It’s just another attempt to shut down dissent by Federated Farmers. The Feds are a lobby group for New Zealand's biggest polluters, and this crack at peaceful protest is part of a global trend that we must not stand for.

Greenpeace has faced polluters trying to shut us down for decades. Just like the French bombed the Rainbow Warrior 40 years ago to try to stop our opposition to nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the oil industry is currently trying to eliminate Greenpeace in the US, this is another, albeit impotent, attempt to curtail legitimate peaceful protest."

Greenpeace says that the Federated Farmers list of Greenpeace protests is far from comprehensive and omits dozens of examples of direct action that have played a key role in bringing about positive change in Aotearoa and beyond.

O’Flynn says, "Greenpeace has a long history of taking direct action to highlight environmental injustices and stop polluting industries like Fonterra from harming the environment. Federated Farmers have curated a list of some of our most impactful actions - but they’ve left quite a few out and we want to set the record straight."

"Since the 1970s, Greenpeace has campaigned in Aotearoa and the Pacific to ensure that the environment is protected from harm by industries like nuclear weapons, fossil fuels, intensive dairy and commercial fishing that cause significant harm to our collective home. That means that sometimes we will put our bodies on the line to stop corporations from harming the planet."

"Importantly, many of our actions to highlight environmental injustice have led to changes that we pride ourselves on as a nation. The nuclear free campaigns of the 1970s and 80s led to New Zealand declaring itself nuclear free, and to the end of nuclear testing in the Pacific. The GE-free campaign led to New Zealand imposing a moratorium on GE crops. The campaign to end oil and gas exploration led to a ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration in Aotearoa. The campaign to stop the Ruataniwha Dam protected the rivers of the Hawke’s Bay from pollution from intensive dairy expansion, and prevented conservation land from being flooded to build a dam.

"New Zealanders care deeply about nature and history shows that Greenpeace protests have protected that.. Our actions sit alongside long-fought legal battles, petitions, and mass protests and marches in the streets of New Zealand’s biggest cities.

"We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on our long history of actions that have succeeded in protecting nature from industries that seek to destroy it."

An expanded (but not comprehensive), list of key Greenpeace Aotearoa actions dating back to the 1970s is below.

1970s:

• In 1972, the Nuclear Campaign started with the first protest flotilla mobilisation to oppose and disrupt the French Government’s atmospheric nuclear weapons testing programme at Moruroa Atoll in Te Ao Maohi/French Polynesia. This was led by the boat (SV) Greenpeace III, previously named the Vega.
• In 1973, a second, larger flotilla sailed to the Moruroa Atoll including the Vega. Sailing into the nuclear testing zone prevented the French from being able to detonate bombs.

1980s:

• In July 1985, the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior was bombed in the Auckland Harbour following direct actions in the Pacific to oppose nuclear testing - including the evacuation of the people of Rongelap.
• In September 1985, Greenpeace sent MV Greenpeace to protest against the French Government’s nuclear testing programme at Moruroa Atoll alongside a flotilla of New Zealand protest boats including SV Vega, SV Alliance, SV Varangian, and SV Breeze.

1990s:

• In 1995 Greenpeace once again sailed the Rainbow Warrior II into nuclear testing zones in Moruroa and Tahiti to protest the resumption of French nuclear testing.
• In 1995, Greenpeace protested against CHOGM in Auckland over the impending execution of Ogoni environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by the military regime that ruled Nigeria.
• In 1997, Greenpeace activists blocked the Stratford gas-fired power station’s generators being unloaded in the Port of Taranaki
• In 1998, during the SV Rainbow Warrior II tour, Greenpeace ‘unplugged’ Fletcher Challenge Energy’s seismic testing cabling in Taranaki.
• During the 1990s, Greenpeace championed the creation of a 50 million square kilometre Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around the Antarctic continent and launched a series of anti-whaling expeditions into the Southern Ocean to expose and confront the Japanese Government’s bogus ‘scientific’ whaling fleet operating there.

2000s:

• In December 2000, Greenpeace activists stopped the production of genetically engineered feed at a Tegel plant in Takanini.
• In 2002, activists in Auckland scaled a waste incineration facility chimney, capped it, and locked on to highlight dioxin pollution.
• In August 2003, Greenpeace activists boarded a coal ship in Tauranga in opposition to coal mining.
• In 2004, the SV Rainbow Warrior II‘s crew used inflatable boats to disrupt the NZ bottom trawler, Ocean Reward, to stop it destroying deep-sea life while fishing in international waters in the Tasman Sea. They delayed the fishing vessel from deploying its trawl net by attaching an inflatable life-raft to it, running the gauntlet of being shot at with compressed air guns and sprayed with high pressure fire hoses by the Ocean Reward’s crew.
• In May 2004, Greenpeace activists locked on to the Auckland McDonalds distribution centre gates over McDonalds’ use of GE feed.
• In February 2005, Greenpeace activists occupied the roof of the Marsden B power station.
• In July 2006, Greenpeace activists locked on to a Chinese bottom trawling ship in the Port of Nelson to prevent the destruction caused by the bottom trawling industry to the seafloor.
• In October 2008, Greenpeace activists in Tokoroa locked on to logging equipment to stop conversion to pasture for intensive agriculture.
• In October 2009, Greenpeace activists locked on to a palm kernel shipment in Taranaki to protest links to rainforest destruction and climate change.
• In November 2009, Greenpeace activists shut down a pit of a New Vale lignite coal mine, used by Fonterra to help fuel operations at its nearby Edendale dairy factory.

2010s

• In May 2010, Greenpeace activists locked on to a Fonterra coal power plant in Clandeboye
• In February 2011, Greenpeace activists locked on to a ship carrying palm kernel in New Plymouth to protest the links to rainforest destruction and climate change.
• Also in 2011, a flotilla of boats from around the North Island, including the Te Whanau a Apanui fishing vessel San Pietro, began a landmark at-sea protest against offshore oil surveying by oil giant Petrobras that lasted 42 days.
• In 2012, Greenpeace activists occupied the oil drilling ship The Noble Discoverer in Port Taranaki and camped on its tower for 77 hours, to protest the environmental destruction caused by oil drilling.
• In 2013, as part of the Oil Free Seas Flotilla, Greenpeace activists broke the newly introduced Anadarko Amendment by sailing into the exclusion zone to confront oil giant Anadarko at sea.
• In September 2016, Greenpeace ‘returned to sender’ the site office at the Ruataniwha Dam construction site. The activists removed the site office from its location near the Makaroro River, and returned it to the regional council who were promoting the dam’s construction. After a long campaign to prevent this dam from being built, the Council pulled its funding for the dam and the land exchange required to construct it was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court.
• In 2016, Greenpeace and people from around the country blockaded Sky City which was hosting the annual oil industry conference.
• In 2016 Greenpeace activists locked on board the NIWA taxpayer-funded climate and ocean research boat which had been chartered by petroleum giant Chevron to survey for oil in New Zealand waters
• In August 2017, Greenpeace protestors spent 12 hours locked inside irrigation pipes in a bid to slow the construction of the Central Plains Water Scheme
• In September 2017, Greenpeace activists staged a ‘lightning’ occupation of a dam construction site in Canterbury after facing legal threats from a big irrigation company.
• The Amazon Warrior Sea Protest in 2017, where Greenpeace’s Executive Director Russel Norman and two others jumped into the ocean in front of the Amazon Warrior to prevent seismic drilling.
• In July 2018, Greenpeace protestors occupied the site of a proposed dairy expansion in Mackenzie Country and refused to leave.
• The occupation of oil drilling support vessel the Skandi Atlantic at the port of Timaru in 2019, to prevent it from supporting oil giant OMV to search for oil off the coast of Taranaki
• In 2019, Greenpeace activists alongside youth climate movement School Strike 4 Climate occupied the headquarters of OMV in Taranaki for several days over the role of the fossil fuel industry in fuelling the climate crisis.

2020s:

• In 2020, Greenpeace activists climbed the Fertiliser Association building and unfurled a giant banner calling for an end to the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Subsequently, the government introduced a cap on the amount of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used on farms.
• In 2021, Greenpeace activists took action against fishing company Talleys in Nelson, painting a message on the side of the ship to protest bottom trawling.
• In 2022, Greenpeace activists deployed a 1500 square metre banner at the Kapuni Fertiliser factory, labelling synthetic nitrogen fertiliser ‘cancer fertiliser’.
• In 2023, Greenpeace activists dropped banners inside the Parliament gallery to protest inaction on climate change.
• In 2024, Greenpeace activists scaled Fonterra's Te Rapa dairy factory in Hamilton and dropped a giant banner reading ‘Fonterra’s methane cooks the climate’, to protest the superheating methane gas produced by Fonterra’s oversized dairy herd.
• Also in 2024, Greenpeace shut down the offices of Straterra - a mining lobbying firm who are working to advance seabed mining off the coast of Taranaki despite widespread community opposition. Two Greenpeace activists scaled the building while three others locked themselves inside the offices.
• In November 2024, Greenpeace activists interrupted the AGM of Manuka Resources - the parent company of seabed mining company Trans-Tasman Resources who are attempting to mine the seabed off the coast of Taranaki.
• In April 2025, Greenpeace activists shut down operations at a palm kernel storage facility in Port Taranaki for several hours, preventing a ship from offloading thirty thousand tonnes of palm kernel connected to the destruction of Indonesian rainforests.

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