        A BRIEF HISTORY OF LONDON GREENPEACE


	The name Greenpeace was used in Britain at least as early
	as 1971.  It appeared in print as the title of a
	broadsheet published as a supplement in Peace News in
	1971.  The broadsheet was a compilation of ideas about how
	individuals could take action in their own lives to
	preserve the ecosystem.

	In 1972 "Greenpeace" was used as the name for a coalition
	of individuals and groups in Britain campaigning against
	French nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.  At the same
	time there were other Greenpeace groups both in Britain
	and in some other countries: the different groups were in
	touch with one another as an informal network of
	autonomous groups, in particular around the issue of
	nuclear testing.

	The London group, usually known as Greenpeace (London),
	continued to be in touch with other such groups around the
	world.

	In 1977, the biggest of the Greenpeace organisations
	outside Britain - the Vancouver Greenpeace Foundation in
	Canada - formalised its links with some of the other
	Greenpeace organisations around the world, seeing itself
	as the "lead" group.  Shortly before this, in late 1976,
	members of that organisation came to London and met people
	from Greenpeace (London).  The Vancouver people wanted the
	London group to "take its orders from" the Board of
	Directors in Vancouver, but were told that the London
	group had never had that kind of relationship with other
	Greenpeace Groups.  (The relationship with groups like the
	Vancouver one had often been close, but never based on any
	sort of hierarchy.)  Subsequently, a letter from Vancouver
	explicitly recognised the autonomy of the existing London
	group.

	Activists in London - including the people who had come
	from Canada - who DID want to be under the control of the
	Vancouver Foundation, formed a London Branch of the
	Vancouver Foundation, which then formed a limited company
	and became known as Greenpeace Ltd or Greenpeace UK.

	Since 1977, Greenpeace (London) and Greenpeace Ltd have
	been quite separate organisations, working on different
	campaigns - though of course their separate campaigns have
	had some issues in common, such as anti-nuclear work.

	The original London Greenpeace Group has deliberately
	stayed as a small group of activists, without leaders,
	with decisions taken by consensus of all those involved,
	and has always encouraged people in other areas to set up
	their own active groups rather than "joining" London
	Greenpeace.  Greenpeace Ltd, on the other hand, has done
	exactly the opposite, and has grown large in resources but
	with absolutely no democratic - let alone libertarian -
	aspect to its work.  For example, although you can give
	money to them, you can't join the organisation in the
	sense of having any say whatsoever in what the
	organisation does.


"THE LONDON GREENPEACE GROUP has existed for many years as an independent 
group of activists with no involvement in any particular political party. 
The people -not "members"- who come to the weekly open meetings share a 
concern for the oppression in our lives and the destruction of our 
environment.  Many opposition movements are growing in strength -ecological, 
anti-war, animal liberation, and anarchist-libertarian movements- and 
continually learning from each other. We encourage people to think and act 
independently, without leaders, to try to understand the causes of opression 
and to aim for its abolition through social revolution. This begins in our 
own lives now."

