14 Facts About Steve Abel

Stephen George Bremner Abel is a New Zealand politician, environmental activist and musician who is involved with Greenpeace.

Steve Abel was involved from 1998 to 2000 in the successful campaign by Native Forest Action to stop native logging on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.

Steve Abel later worked as a campaigner for Greenpeace from 2002 to 2006 during which time he was prominent in the New Zealand movement against genetically engineered food crops.

Steve Abel was involved in actions against the proposed coal-fired power station Marsden B in Northland, New Zealand including a nine-day occupation in 2005 and the operation of a pirate radio station Heatwave FM which broadcast from Ruakaka in November 2006.

Steve Abel was one of the coordinators of the re-recording of the Don McGlashan song "Anchor Me" in 2005 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Steve Abel campaigned in 2011 with Te Whanau-a-Apanui against the Brazilian oil company Petrobras' plans for deep sea oil drilling in the Raukumara Basin which included a flotilla that spent 42 days at sea.

Steve Abel has publicly advocated for peaceful civil disobedience as a means to resisting the oil industry and achieving political action to address climate change.

On 21 July 2020 Steve Abel was arrested when protesting the removal of a stand of native trees on a Canal Road property in Avondale, Auckland, in what would become New Zealand's longest-running live-in tree protest, lasting 245 days and out of which arose urban tree protection group Mana Rakau.

In 2021 and 2022, as Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace, Steve Abel led a free mail-in and town-hall water testing service focussed on rural communities impacted by nitrate water contamination in dairy intense regions.

In February 2020, Steve Abel announced that he would be contesting the New Lynn electorate as a Green Party candidate during the 2020 general election.

On preliminary results, Steve Abel was ranked one place too low to enter Parliament on the Green party list, but took part in the induction for new MPs in case he was elected after the counting of special votes.

Steve Abel contested New Lynn again at the 2023 New Zealand general election.

In late November 2023, Steve Abel assumed the Green Party's agriculture, animal welfare, food safety, Maori-Crown relations: Te Arawhiti, Just Transitions, resources and racing spokesperson portfolios.

Steve Abel contributed his song Hospice for Destitute Lovers, and voice, as the character of Gert, to Florian Habicht's art-noir feature film Woodenhead.