Greenpeace East Asia is an office serving the East Asia region of the global

environmental organization An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environment ...

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

. It is one of the largest international

NGOs in China This article is a list of domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in China. __NOTOC__ List 0-9 A *Academy for Educational Development *ActionAid *Adventist Development and Relief Agency China * AFS Interc ...

History

Greenpeace East Asia's first

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

office was opened in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

in 1997. Early actions included a blockade of a

shipment Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been ext ...

electronic waste Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics which are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery, or disposal are also considered e-waste. Informa ...

from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and a campaign highlighting the dangers of PVC in children's

toy A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pet ...

s. Before offices were formally opened in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

in 2002, activists from the Hong Kong office ran several campaigns on the Chinese Mainland. These included investigations into electronic waste dumping in

Guangdong province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

and a campaign to stop US-headquartered biotechnology firm

Monsanto Company The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup (herbicide), Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbic ...

from patenting a Chinese indigenous

soy bean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu a ...

variety. Early mainland-based campaigns focused on food and agriculture and electronic waste. Since then Greenpeace East Asia has broadened its mandate into efforts to urge China's

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

products industry to import environmentally sound

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

, clean up its polluted

rivers A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

and

lakes A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

, and highlight the urgency of stopping

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

Campaigns

Greenpeace East Asia runs five main campaigns:

climate and energy In the 21st century, the earth's climate and its energy policy interact and their relationship is studied and governed by a variety of national and international institutions. The relationships between energy-resource depletion, climate change, ...

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

and

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

toxic Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...

s (

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water ...

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and a campaign on

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

. The organisation uses non-violent direct action to draw attention to what it considers significant threats to the environment and also lobbies for solutions. It emphasizes that while "surging economic development in East Asia has brought widespread prosperity, thas also taken a severe environmental toll, both regionally and worldwide." The website also lists several achievements including: * In 1998, following a Greenpeace campaign, Hong Kong banned the import and re-export of hazardous waste. * In 2006, Greenpeace East Asia was the only NGO to be consulted on an early draft of a

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

law by China's

National People's Congress The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPC; ), or simply the National People's Congress, is constitutionally the supreme state authority and the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2, ...

. * Two Greenpeace expeditions to China's

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

n region in 2006 and 2007 produced evidence of dramatic

glacial retreat The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and, in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Deglaciation occu ...

. * On July 6, 2010 Greenpeace China took action against

Asia Pulp & Paper Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is an Indonesian pulp and paper company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. One of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world, it was founded as Tjiwi Kimia by Eka Tjipta Widjaja in 1972. Asia Pulp & Paper is a subsidiar ...

and French supermarket chain

Auchan Auchan () is a French multinational retail group headquartered in Croix, France. It was founded in 1961 by Gérard Mulliez and is owned by the Mulliez family, who has 95% stake in the company. With 354,851 employees, of which 261,000 have 5% s ...

, which carries APP paper products such as Breeze (清风 Qingfeng)

tissue paper Tissue paper or simply tissue is a lightweight paper or, light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made from recycled pulp (paper), paper pulp on a paper machine. Tissue paper is very versatile, and different kinds of tissue are made to best serve these ...

. Activists, dressed as the

Sumatran tiger The Sumatran tiger is a population of ''Panthera tigris sondaica'' on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is the only surviving tiger population in the Sunda Islands, where the Bali and Javan tigers are extinct. Sequences from complete mitochon ...

buried themselves under packages of Breeze toilet paper rolls while forest campaigner Ma Lichao spoke to the media about the issues. Although critical of its forestry practices in the past, Greenpeace is now working with APP to monitor its sustainability strategy including the implementation of its Forest Conservation Policy. Currently one of Greenpeace East Asia's key campaigns is to encourage China to reduce its reliance on

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

as a power source and to speed up the development of the

sector instead. Apart from specific campaigns, they also work with local organisations from time to time for general advocacy, including with the Geography Society of

PLK Vicwood KT Chong Sixth Form College Po Leung Kuk Vicwood K. T. Chong Sixth Form College (KTC) is a government-subsidised sixth form college in Yau Tsim Mong District, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was established on 26 July 1991 to provide quality education to secondary pupils matriculat ...

between 2008 and 2009.

Research reports

In June 2021, it released ''Missing Brownfields- Hong Kong Brownfields Report 2021'', a collaborative report with

Liber Research Community Liber Research Community is a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong that focuses on researching land and development policies. History The group was created in 2009 by postgraduates, including Chan Kim-ching, who studied geography and ...

where together, they found a total of 1,950 hectares of

brownfield In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land prev ...

sites, 379 more hectares than the government was previously able to locate.

References

External links

Greenpeace East AsiaGreenpeace International
{{Greenpeace Environmental organizations established in 1997 Environmental organizations based in China Greenpeace Civil disobedience Climate change organizations

History

Campaigns

Research reports

See also

References

External links