Since being acquired by Greenpeace in 1977, "Rainbow Warrior" was active in supporting a number of anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, anti-nuclear testing and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since early 1985, the ship was based in the southern Pacific Ocean, where its crew campaigned against nuclear testing. After relocating 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by radioactivity by past American nuclear tests, it travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at the Mururoa Atoll.