Earlier this year, Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo offered two reasons why governments have become far more worried about the environmental movement.

In an interview in the Georgia Straight office, he said that first, it's because green groups are no longer on the political fringe.

"It's a mainstream agenda," Naidoo said.

To illustrate his point, he claimed that everything Greenpeace says about climate change is also being stated by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Naidoo described the IPCC as "the biggest scientific enterprise in the history of humanity".

Secondly, he added, the environmental movement today is unrecognizable from what it looked like 20 or 30 years ago.

That's because indigenous, community groups, and faith-based organizations have moved to the forefront to defend ecological assets.

"The environmental movement is not just Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, and some national organizations," Naidoo said. "It's the women's movement. It's the youth movement....Climate change is about the economy. It's about peace."

He said that Greenpeace's role is to help community-driven activists achieve their goals.

Toast the Coast brings people together

In that spirit, there will be a broad cross-section of folks at Jericho Beach Park on Saturday (June 13) to join a mass picnic organized by Greenpeace.

They'll get a chance to hear free musical performances from Giraffe Aftermath, Viper Central, Sandy Scofield, Monica Lee Band, Ta'Kaiya Blaney, Corrina Keeling and more.

It's called Toast the Coast Before the Coast is Toast and it runs from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. It's being held to raise awareness about the ecological danger of new pipelines and the sharp increase in tanker traffic that will occur if they're ever built.

"Shell is right now moving its Arctic fleet into position to begin drilling for oil in Alaska's ice-covered waters—oil they want to eventually ship in super-tankers South along the coast," the Toast the Coast web page states.

One of the speakers will be Oscar-winning actor Jane Fonda, who's been a vociferous critic of Shell's plans.

Fonda's opposition to Arctic drilling has been inspired by Canadian writer Naomi Klein's recent book on climate change, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. It demonstrates how grassroots activists are transforming the debate over global warming with direct action and promoting divestment in fossil-fuel companies.

In some respects, Fonda is returning to her roots when she was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Indigenous people lead the way

Toast the Coast will also showcase First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers' large piece of art depicting a salmon.

It's a reflection of the important role that indigenous people are playing in the fight to save the planet.

Here in B.C., activists like Grand Chief Stewart Philip and Coastal First Nations executive director Art Sterritt are two of the most important voices in campaigns against the proposed Northern Gateway Project.

In his interview with the Straight earlier this year, Naidoo noted that First Nations blessed activists on the maiden Greenpeace voyage to Alaska in 1971 to oppose a U.S. nuclear test on Amchitka Island.

"When they got to Alert Bay, they were received in the big house as sort of heroes and they were given this Sisiutl symbol—and that's been on our ships ever since," Naidoo said. "So that symbol has gone through every length and breadth of this planet."

So it's not as if First Nations are newcomers to campaigns to preserve B.C.'s natural environment. Only now with their growing legal and political clout, it's much harder for them to be ignored by governments.

"Those who were deemed to be uncivilized were actually substantially more civilized than those who were trying to do the civilizing," Naidoo stated.

He added that the knowledge and wisdom that First Nations people have in maintaining a mutually interdependent relationship with nature is critically needed in the struggle to save the planet.

"Globally, we are working much more closely now with indigenous communities," he noted. "For example, one of our biggest campaigns now is to try to get the Arctic to be declared a global sanctuary."

Hence the connection between Fonda's appearance to rail against Shell Oil's plans, Vickers's art from Alert Bay, and the focus on tankers at tomorrow's event. They're all interconnected.