At long last, a scholarly account of the history of the Greenpeace Foundation has been published.

Greenpeace by Rex Weyler is a 621-page history of the organization that was co-founded by Sea Shepherd Founder Paul Watson.

The book is subtitled "How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World."  It has been published by Raincoast Books of Vancouver, and is available in bookstores and on Amazon.com

According to Captain Paul Watson founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, "This book is the best book on Greenpeace to be published since the release of Warriors of Rainbow by Bob Hunter back in 1979.  But it is different than Hunter's wonderful book in that it takes a more historical approach with special attention to the facts."

The book covers the period from 1970 until the emergence of Greenpeace International in 1979.  In other words, the book outlines the story of the tough, turbulent formative years of an organization that started as a small grassroots "green" and "peace" group in Vancouver, British Columbia, to become the generic name known throughout the world for environmental activism.

Continues Watson, "This book establishes how, where, when, and by whom this organization was developed.  Weyler's attention to fact is to be complimented.  He personally consulted with me on points of fact as he did with the other principles in the book, and he has completed a well-documented historical account of Greenpeace."

Rex Weyler knows much of what he relates from personal experience. He was the official Greenpeace photographer on the first voyage to save the whales in 1975, one of only thirteen that included Paul Watson, Robert Hunter, and David Garrick.  He participated on numerous campaigns since then and was the editor of the Greenpeace Chronicles in the late seventies.

This book is relevant to Sea Shepherd because it is from Greenpeace that Sea Shepherd evolved, and many of the people in this history although no longer active with Greenpeace continued to be active volunteers with Sea Shepherd.  People like Al Johnson, Lyle Thurston, Rod Marining, Matt Herron, John Cormack, Al Hewett, David Garrick, Bobbi Hunter, and Ron Precious. 

Watson has often said that Greenpeace is the Foundation and Sea Shepherd is the Second Foundation in reference to comparison's with Issac Assimov's famous Foundation Trilogy. It was that science fiction classic that inspired the use of the word "foundation" behind the Greenpeace name.

According to Watson, "Sea Shepherd is Greenpeace and it is not. It has been my role to constantly kick Greenpeace in the butt, to provide competition, and to expose hypocrisies - in other words, the same role as the Second Foundation in Asimov's book. Of course, in the Assimov book, the Second Foundation is despised by the Foundation for this role and I have enjoyed the same attitude for my role. That was meant to be. There was a plan and there was not a plan. Today I am close friends with Robert Hunter, the true founding father of Greenpeace and I remain friends with many of the early activists including Rex Weyler. We have survived the chaos involved in creating a movement, although there were a few casualties, people like Dr. Patrick Moore who crossed over to the dark side for corporate hand-outs and Bob Cummings whose suicide was caused by stress induced by the conflicts. Overall Rex Weyler, ("Brother Rex" as we used to call him), has done an excellent job with this book and I endorse it 100%."