IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREENPEACE

By Anastasia Toufexis

AN AD AGENCY IN LONDON LAST WEEK was filming a TV commercial for Greenpeace. Directed by Hollywood horrormeister Roger Corman (A Bucket of Blood, Swamp Women), it opens with a mother beckoning to her children. At first they surround her lovingly, lavishing hugs and kisses on her. Then they turn savage, scratching and dragging her to the ground, where she is left battered and bleeding. The heavy-handed metaphor is meant to represent Mother Earth's treatment by humans, but it might just as well serve as a caution for Greenpeace itself.

Twenty-four years after its founding, the world's most influential environmental group is sailing some rough seas, racked by a battle among its members over its future direction. At issue: Should Greenpeace continue to rely primarily on the ecowarrior tactics that first brought it both notoriety and international support, or should it pursue a more subtle--and perhaps more effective--strategy of ecodiplomacy?

The conflict between old-line "radicals" and new-style "suits" has erupted openly in recent months as Greenpeace has suffered one public debacle after another. In the latest, activists sailed into the waters off Mururoa atoll early last month in a futile effort to get the French to halt resumption of nuclear-test blasts in the Pacific. But the protesters blundered into a trap, allowing the French navy to seize two vessels--the flagship Rainbow Warrior II and, more significantly, the group's largest support ship, MV Greenpeace. French authorities impounded a third protest vessel a few days before setting off a second atomic blast last week. In the wake of the seizures and the resulting public squabbling among Greenpeace leaders, top officials forced the resignation of one of its key antinuclear strategists and reprimanded another.

The Pacific disaster was preceded by one in the North Atlantic. In July daring commando actions by Greenpeace activists scuttled Shell Oil's plans to sink the storage platform Brent Spar. According to the triumphant activists, the campaign saved the sea from pollution by 5,000 tons of oil. Last month chagrined Greenpeace officials were forced to admit that the potential environmental damage had been grossly miscalculated. The Brent Spar actually contained only 10 tons of oil.

Such embarrassments have reinforced the view of many within Greenpeace that the organization needs to go beyond the headline-grabbing stunts and start offering solutions. Confrontation, they insist, must give way to cooperation. Those would have been fighting words to the ragged band of hippies and tree huggers who founded Greenpeace in the late '60s. But times have changed. Today Greenpeace boasts 3.1 million dues-paying members, a $140 million budget, 1,000 full-time staff members, 43 offices worldwide and a fleet of oceangoing vessels. More and more, it has come to resemble the very corporate giants that have been its enemies. (TIME is the target of an ongoing Greenpeace campaign protesting the magazine's use of chlorine-bleached pulp.)

Thilo Bode's election last summer as executive director of Greenpeace International, the umbrella organization that sets policy for the national chapters, seemed to set the seal on a more professional managerial approach to ecoadvocacy. A German economist, Bode favors suits and ties and only reluctantly opens a shirt button or two for TV interviews so as better to fit the group's laid-back image. "Greenpeace will face a crisis if we're not able to make a cultural change," he says. "No amount of management skill will help us if we don't have a shared vision."

In the U.S. the conciliatory attitude has led to a constructive exchange with the insurance industry over a common concern: climate change. "Our interest is not so much in their advocacy as in their science," says Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America.

Another group that has responded favorably is the dry-cleaning industry. Greenpeace's campaign to force changes in cleaning methods began in the traditional antagonistic fashion, with volunteers going door to door in areas around shops with warning fact sheets that asked, "Are you aware of your toxic neighbor?" Now Greenpeace is negotiating with the industry to increase the use of water-based cleaning methods.

But a hard-line faction remains committed to the image of swashbuckling ecowarriors. To the militants, the organization needs more front-line activists, not fewer, and bolder actions against long-neglected problems such as Chinese nuclear testing and hazardous nuclear plants in the former Soviet Union.

And even those who have embraced persuasion promise not to abandon provocation as a tactic. "Our strategy is based on winning," declares Toby Hutcheon, Greenpeace Australia's public-campaign coordinator. "Whatever works. Whatever it takes."

--Reported by Hannah Bloch/Washington, James Geary/Amsterdam, Helen Gibson/London and Kimina Lyall/Melbourne, with other bureaus

With reporting by HANNAH BLOCH/WASHINGTON, JAMES EARY/AMSTERDAM, HELEN GIBSON/LONDON AND KIMINA LYALL/MELBOURNE, WITH OTHER BUREAUS