OT/Greenpeace founder dies in crash

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Greenpeace founder dies in crash

 

From AFP

24mar01

 

10.30 (AEDT) THE Canadian founder of the environmental campaign group

Greenpeace, David McTaggart, was killed today in a car crash near his home

in Italy.

 

McTaggart's car was in a collision with another car carrying two people at

Castiglione del Lago, in the central region of Umbria, police said.

 

The driver of the other car, 71-year-old Dino Belli, died in hospital soon

after the crash. Belli's 74-year-old wife was in a critical condition in

Perugia hospital, doctors said.

 

McTaggart, 68, was travelling alone when the accident happened. He had lived

in Umbria for several years at a farm near the town of Paciano.

 

" We are all deeply shocked by this news. Greenpeace would not be what it is

today without his amazing force behind it, " Greenpeace's interim

international executive director, Gerd Leipold, said in a statement issued

in Amsterdam.

 

McTaggart co-founded Greenpeace in 1972 as a direct action organisation,

initially to protest against French nuclear tests at Moruroa in the South

Pacific in 1972.

 

Pressure from the organisation finally resulted in the atmospheric nuclear

tests being cancelled.

 

In a statement, the group also described him as key to the campaign to stop

commercial whaling and the creation of the South Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

 

" His work to achieve lasting protection of Antarctica from commercial

exploitation of it's mineral wealth is perhaps one of his greatest

triumphs, " the group said.

 

" Greenpeace would be unthinkable without his force of personality. He built

up the organisation into the international pressure group it is today,

opening offices in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, when no one

believed it possible, " added Leipold.

 

" Not only is he a great loss to Greenpeace, but also to the environmental

movement worldwide. "