Date of Award

Spring 5-27-2016

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of arts (BA)

Department

Global Honors

First Advisor

Tom Koontz

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to see whether or not environmental activism projects benefit or harm the indigenous populations of the countries in which these projects are taking place. When looking at environmental activism projects, Greenpeace International’s environmental activism projects within Indonesia were analyzed because they are one of the largest environmental organizations in the world. The Indonesian palm oil industry was looked at specifically to examine the effects of Greenpeace’s work on the indigenous populations of Indonesia that are affected by the palm oil industry. Several of Greenpeace’s publications were examined in order to find out how often Greenpeace mentioned the indigenous populations of Indonesia when they presented the palm oil crisis to the rest of the world. A table was designed in order to analyze all of Greenpeace’s publications that mentioned the indigenous populations of Indonesia. The table was created in order to examine the ratio of how often indigenous populations were mentioned within the publication to how big the entire publication was. This table helped to specifically analyze whether or not Greenpeace mentioned the effects of the palm oil industry and their environmental activism projects affected the indigenous populations of Indonesia. With Greenpeace being one of the largest opponents of the palm oil industry, if they shed light onto what is happening to the indigenous populations of Indonesia then it will allow the rest of the world to see what is actually happening and make them want to take action.

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