Former member bares huge Greenpeace PR fund

MANILA, Philippines - A prize-winning writer-researcher who once led Greenpeace’s campaign against biotechnology recently said the Europe-based activist group has some $350 million in “public relations” funds yearly to finance its campaigns.

British environment campaigner Mark Lynas, former Greenpeace member, said the funds are used in a global campaign against genetically-modified plants which included the destruction of trial farms planted with this food variety.

Lynas said he himself was part of “vandalizing genetically engineered plans as part of Greenpeace’s direct action to dramatize its advocacy”. Lynas said he parted ways with Greenpeace in 2008 after “discovering the strong scientific consensus in favor of biotechnology”.

He branded Greenpeace’s anti-biotechnology campaign as “lies”, saying he regretted “spending years ripping GM crops”. Lynas’ admission that he took part in trial farm destruction activities by Greenpeace came just a few weeks after the Department of Justice (DOJ) junked a plea by the activist group to have charges of malicious mischief against some of its member dropped.

The charges were filed against Greenpeace following the destruction in 2011 of a trial farm planted with a biotechnology-engineered eggplant variety.

Lynas was in the country recently for a series of lectures in the Southeast Asian region.

Lynas also belied claims that genetically-engineered plants are harmful to the environment, saying that “in reality they can be used to benefit the environment.”

He also challenged local militant groups involved in anti-biotechnology campaigns who have benefitted from money from international groups to bare the sources of their funding.

“They should be transparent enough to disclose whether or not they have received funding from international groups like Greenpeace,” he said.

Several local militant groups have undertaken activities similar to what Lynas described as Greenpeace’s “direct action”. Recently, a militant group attacked an experimental farm of the Philippine Rice Research Institute in Camarines Sur planted with the Golden Rice Variety.

Lynas’ book “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet” won the prestigious award from the World Society of Science Books in 2008. It was later made into a film by National Geographic.