New Greenpeace chief has fought apartheid, poverty

Greenpeace was founded 38 years ago by environmental activists who wanted to stop the United States from conducting underground nuclear tests in a region off Alaska that harbored endangered sea otters. Kumi Naidoo, the new director, said Monday he still had much to learn about the group's current agenda, from protecting whales and forests to stopping nuclear tests and toxic dumping. But he has already grasped the issues around global warming, an increasingly overriding concern of Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

"We either get it right and all of humanity comes out on the other side with a new world," Naidoo told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before he took the Greenpeace helm. "Or we get it wrong and all the world is going to sink."

Gerd Leipold, his predecessor at Greenpeace, said Naidoo's appointment is a watershed, both because he is the first African and because he is the first executive director to come from outside the organization.

After battling apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, Naidoo led global campaigns to end poverty and protect human rights. Recently, he has led the Global Campaign for Climate Action, which brings together environmental, aid, religious and human rights groups, labor unions, scientists and others and has organized mass demonstrations around climate negotiations.

"Previously, environmentalism was seen as for the privileged few," said Tasneem Essop, a South African environmentalist who has known Naidoo since their days as student anti-apartheid activists. She said the new Greenpeace chief will help rally other human rights and development workers to the climate cause.

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