| Type | Non-governmental organization |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1997, Hong Kong |
| Location | Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul |
| Key people | Mario Damato (Executive Director) |
| Area served | People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea |
| Focus | Environmentalism, peace |
| Method | campaigning, lobbying, research, consultancy |
| Website | http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia |
Greenpeace East Asia is an office serving the East Asia region of the global environmental organization Greenpeace. It is one of the largest international NGOs in China.
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Greenpeace East Asia's first China office was opened in Hong Kong in 1997. Early actions included a blockade of a shipment of electronic waste from Australia and a campaign highlighting the dangers of PVC in children's toys. [1]
Before offices were formally opened in Guangzhou and Beijing 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 and a campaign to stop US-headquartered biotechnology firm Monsanto Company from patenting a Chinese indigenous soy bean variety. [2]
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 products industry to import environmentally-sound timber, clean up its polluted rivers and lakes, and highlight the urgency of stopping climate change.
Greenpeace East Asia runs five main campaigns: climate and energy, food and agriculture, toxics (water pollution), forests and a campaign on air pollution (Hong Kong only). 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, [it] has also taken a severe environmental toll, both regionally and worldwide."[1]
The website also lists several achievements including:
Currently one of Greenpeace East Asia's key campaigns is to encourage China to reduce its reliance on coal as a power source and to speed up the development of the renewable energy sector instead. [4]
According to the Greenpeace East Asia website, the mission of Greenpeace can be summed up as follows[5]:
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