New Greenpeace Director Comes Armed With Experience
Greenpeace now has a new director, and one with years of experience in the field.
Image source: greenpeace.org
Kumi Naidoo, 44, is the first African director of this great organization and also the first executive director to come from outside of the organization (i.e. he wasn’t promoted from within). He is certainly passionate about the work he does, however. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, he said “we either get it right and all of humanity comes out on the other side with a new world, or we get it wrong and all the world is going to sink.” He also added “if the whole planet is under threat … what’s the point of not addressing that and saying we’ll do other development work?”
Although he may be new to Greenpeace and still has much to learn about their ongoing work, he already comes with quite the experienced resume. Check out some of the things he has done in his lifetime:
- Battled Apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s
- Led worldwide campaigns to stop poverty and protect human rights
- Fought for women and children rights (particularly for those vulnerable to droughts or floods)
- Pushed to strengthen global cooperation and ensure the concerns of poor countries are heard
- Went on a hunger strike to protest Zimbabwe human rights abuses
- Led the Global Campaign for Climate Action
- Organized large demonstrations focused on climate negotiations
If those credentials aren’t enough to impress you, maybe his schooling and other work will. At the age of 15 he began to take part in student protests. By the age of 16 he was kicked out of school for involvement in peaceful protests against a system that denied non-caucasians basic rights; however, he finished high school via home schooling. He moved on to earn a degree in law in South Africa and also a doctorate in political sociology as a Rhodes Scholar from Oxford. Once finished with college, he worked for the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid groups.
Armed with years of study and field experience, Naidoo has a lot of work cut out for him in this new position, especially when dealing with governments. The big Copenhagen event is drawing near, and still the prospect of a climate change treaty is looking bleak. World leaders said on Sunday that it is quite unrealistic to expect such a thing and instead they will push a political framework for Copenhagen and handle the legally binding agreement in next year’s meeting at Mexico City. Luckily, Naidoo is prepared for this venture, as Greenpeace will be attending he event.
“Governments, sadly, are unlikely to change as fast we need them to unless they are pushed,” said Naidoo. Anything short of a binding treaty in Copenhagen must be read as a failure of leadership on the part of the political class. We can’t change the science. The science is clear. We have to change the politics. If we can’t change the politics, then we have to put our energies into changing the politicians.”
Check out the Greenpeace website to keep up-to-date on their efforts and find out how you can get involved.
By Heidi Marshall
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Tags: Apartheid, climate change, copenhagen, environmental organizations, global warming, Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, South Africa
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