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.

Greenpeace launched a campaign to coerce America’s three favorite canned tuna brands into changing the way they fish for tuna. The consequence of such a change would effectively eliminate this nutritious staple from grocers’ shelves.

By creating a crisis — a sustainability crisis that does not exist for the species used in canned tuna — Greenpeace hopes to generate donations from unsuspecting environmentalists. It kicked of its campaign with the release of a sophomoric cartoon called “The Tuna Industry’s Got a Dirty Little Secret,” which has spurred dissent even among their most ardent supports.

For the science-based truth on the robust population of tuna like skipjack and albacore (marketed as “chunk light” and “solid white” respectively) and the truth about by-catch and sustainable fishing methods, watch (and share) this video.

How important is canned tuna? It’s delicious. It’s nutritious. It’s affordable and it doesn’t need to be refrigerated. That’s four reasons this weekend that Americans from North Carolina to New England have been stocking up as Hurricane Irene bears down on the East Coast.

As the winds pick up, the rain pours down and we reach for that shelf-stable staple to feed the kids by candlelight, remember Greenpeace is actively campaigning to take away your canned tuna.

Friday August 26, 2011 (Picture courtesy of shopper in Williamsburg, VA)

Greenpeace says it’s protecting the environment, but did you know it recently spent $32 million on a new boat? That’s right. In only a few weeks, the group will launch the Rainbow Warrior III, a custom-built, state of the art sailing yacht complete with the latest in diesel engine technology, a media center with high definition televisions and even a helipad.

Paying for such extravagances when the world is near a double-dip recession means that Greenpeace has to concoct a complicated scare story that will get its supporters to dig even deeper to keep them in business. One wonders how far Greenpeace is willing to go in its war on the fishing community now that it has added a $32 million battleship to its fleet.

Greenpeace says “globally tuna populations are in trouble,” and insists that tuna is being pushed “to the brink of extinction.” That’s not true. When you go to the grocery store, canned tuna is always easy to find, and there’s plenty of it available at an affordable price. That’s because virtually all of the nation’s canned tuna supply comes from species that are plentiful.

That conclusion is the consensus of global marine fisheries scientists. One of those scientists, Professor Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, says that there are almost as many tuna in the world’s oceans as there were 60 years ago. Light tuna, known as skipjack tuna, makes up 70% of the canned tuna eaten in the U.S. All skipjack stocks around the world are healthy and abundant.

For all of our friends on Twitter who follow us on @NFIMedia, we wanted to make sure you were aware that standing up to a bully makes you a ”hack.” That is, if you listen to Greenpeace. On Friday, a Greenpeace tuna campaigner lashed out at NFI and then blocked us on Twitter. A screen capture of his tweet is below:

This is what standing up for the truth earns you with Greenpeace—a tongue-lashing from a group whose tantrums are telling.

Can you trust Greenpeace? That’s a question many consumers are asking as the non-profit giant has been attacking the canned tuna industry. According to these sources, people ought to think twice before taking Greenpeace’s word at face value.

In 2007 alone, Greenpeace’s ocean fleet belched out as much carbon dioxide as the emissions created in powering Greenpeace’s offices worldwide for nearly a century. And now it’s promoting pole and line-caught tuna, a practice that would force tuna fleets to use more fuel and generate additional carbon emissions.

While the seafood community has its problems with Greenpeace, it should be noted we’re hardly the group’s only critics. In the most recent edition of Cosmos, acclaimed science writer Wilson da Silva writes, “Greenpeace was once a friend of science, helping bring attention to important but ignored environmental research. These days, it’s a ratbag rabble of intellectual cowards intent on peddling an agenda, whatever the scientific evidence.” Its current campaign against canned tuna is another effort in which it ignores the science and refuses to participate in sustainability work with other responsible, mainstream environmental organizations.

da Silva also writes that Greenpeace “was once the most active, independent and inspiring civilian group for the environment.” He now describes them as “intellectual cowards.” How far they have fallen.

Did you know the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation is a partnership between global tuna canners and environmental leaders from around the world? The group reviews information and provides analysis as part of ISSF’s on-going international tuna sustainability efforts. Those efforts include a three-year at-sea global bycatch reduction project.

The group reviews information and provides analysis as part of ISSF’s on-going international tuna sustainability efforts. Those efforts include a three-year at-sea global bycatch reduction project.

Did you know Greenpeace has been invited to join this group but refused?  That’s right. Instead of joining the coalition, it has chosen to attack tuna companies worldwide as part of its own fundraising scheme. Greenpeace claims it’s interested in more than just begging for donations, but when presented with the opportunity to do more than threaten retailers it refuses.

Greenpeace’s dirty little secret is that it’s not really interested in tuna sustainability. If it were, it would pull up a chair with the other adults at the table and get to work.