David McTaggart
The Gazette proudly awards its Hero Award to one of our Great Envionmental Activists
Influential Greenpeace leader David McTaggart died in an auto accident on Friday, 23 March 2001. The Canadian-born activist, for several years a U.S. home builder, got involved in Greenpeace only a year or so after its founding. Starting in 1972, he led the struggle against French nuclear testing and later played a central role in the formation of Greenpeace International.. McTaggart retired from the chairmanship of Greenpeace International in 1991 and lived in Italy until his accidental death.
McTaggart pioneered non-violent direct action and drew worldwide attention to the issue of nuclear testing when he led the first Greenpeace protest against French nuclear testing at Moruroa in 1972. By taking a small boat into the French testing site at the risk of his own life, McTaggart became a thorn in the side of the French and an inspiration to activists worldwide.
World attention was focused on the the nuclear testing issue when French commandos boarded McTaggart's vessel, pummeled him with truncheons, and permanently damaged his right eye. The French denied the incident, but the subsequent release of a film of the beating brought worldwide scorn and ridicule upon the French government.
Greenpeace's protests led to the cancellation of the atmospheric nuclear tests. David McTaggart's determination played a massive part in that success.
His work to achieve lasting protection of Antarctica from commercial exploitation of its mineral wealth is perhaps one of his greatest triumphs. He also successfully campaigned to stop commercial whaling and to create a Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
A former colleague summed it up:Thirty years on, David's legacy is an international organisation with 2.2 million supporters. Greenpeace would be unthinkable without his force of personality. He made Greenpeace into the international pressure group it is today, opening offices in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, when no one believed it was possible. He is a great loss to Greenpeace, and the environmental movement worldwide.
