Greenpeace To Close Offices, Reduce Staffing ‘Greener’ White House Has Reduced Membership By Two-Thirds

With membership only a third what it was at the beginning of the decade, Greenpeace is being forced to drastically cut its staff and close its regional offices, officials of the environmental group say.

The 25-year-old protest group plans to cut its staff by more than 80 percent nationwide and close or cut back operations at offices outside Washington, D.C., next year.

It also will end door-to-door canvassing to raise money and support, and will focus on only a few issues, primarily global climate change and logging, said spokeswoman Deborah Rephan in Washington, D.C.

Greenpeace built its reputation on splashy protests in the woods and on the water against whaling, nuclear-weapons testing, nuclear power, the international hazardous-waste trade, logging and drift-net fishing.

But membership in the United States has tumbled from a high of nearly 1.2 million in 1991 to about 400,000 today. That has brought “the painful conclusion that maintaining Greenpeace’s mission isn’t possible without a helluva lot of restructuring,” Rephan said in an interview published Saturday by The Seattle Times.

Greenpeace’s membership and fund raising grew when Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush favored what environmentalists considered an anti-green agenda, then slipped with the election of Democrat Bill Clinton.

Rephan said Greenpeace lost thousands of members when it strongly opposed U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Greenpeace will reduce its U.S. staff from 400 to 65 employees, cut its $29 million budget to $21 million next year and close 10 offices outside Washington, D.C.

In Seattle, about half the 16 member staff will be cut, said acting executive director Bill Keller. He said at least five employees will continue working locally on specific campaigns such as the effort to ban giant factory trawlers from fishing in Alaska.

Greenpeace will maintain some presence in at least a half-dozen other U.S. cities, he said.

Cutbacks will not directly affect Greenpeace International, which has affiliates in 32 countries and a budget this year of $145 million.

The organization began in 1971 in Vancouver, British Columbia, when Canadian activists took to the seas to protest nuclear-weapons testing in the Aleutian Islands. It later gained international fame for steering its boats between whales and whalers, playing a major role in the battle for international restrictions on commercial whaling.

In the Pacific Northwest, Greenpeace participated in stormy protests during the 1980s against basing Trident submarines carrying nuclear weapons at Bangor Naval Base on Hood Canal, and against nuclear power plants.

Seattle members greeted the arrival of the missile submarine USS Ohio for the Seafair festival this week with a protest flotilla of kayaks and inflatable boats.

Keller said the Pacific Northwest has traditionally provided one of the group’s strongest funding and membership bases.

The extent of Greenpeace’s cutbacks surprised many.

“Greenpeace long ago stopped being some little mom-and-pop organization,” said David Ortman, former director of the Friends of the Earth’s Seattle office. “The fact that in one fell swoop they’re shutting down their offices around the U.S. is a pretty stunning event. I can’t remember something this dramatic happening to a major environmental organization.”

The group’s campaign against factory trawlers - giant ships that catch fish and process them on board - has drawn fire from fisheries officials and has generated little support among other conservation groups.