The New Zealand town of Ellerslie is a quiet suburb of Auckland. In recent days, volunteers there donated their own time to spruce up the place ahead of the 2011 Rugby World Cup and their annual Fairy Festival. It’s the sort of thing we see a lot of ahead of international events. Locals want to put their best foot forward when they’re on the world stage, and it seems the residents of Ellerslie aren’t any different from their counterparts around the world.

Unfortunately, Greenpeace activists don’t seem to have the same sense of civic pride. Yesterday, just as soon as local volunteers had cleaned up the town, Greenpeace campaigners trashed the place, littering it with posters, banners and fliers attacking a canned tuna company. But while Greenpeace labored to get their point across in their typically heavy-handed manner, reports out of New Zealand indicate they made no friends in Ellersie.

Angry residents called the vandalism ”like a kick in the guts” that left them ”fuming.” Far from the actual content of the Greenpeace campaign, reporters and readers alike focused on the eco-extremists’ lack of civility and couth. ”To see this now just makes you sick,” said local resident Sally Eustace.

Unfortunately for Sally and her neighbors this type of selfish nonsense is standard operating procedure for Greenpeace.