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Fighting to save the planet

Children protest against traffic pollution, Italy

Environmental activism is the combined political force of people who take action to protect the environment. Unfulfilled by mere complaining about environmental problems, activists follow the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, “be the change you want to see”, and work to bring their vision of a better world into reality, even if their actions sometimes involve personal risks and bring no material rewards.

The institutional profile of environmental activism embraces actors ranging from small grassroots and community organizations to large international pressure groups. Some of these focus on specific issues while others such as WWF and Friends of the Earth (FoE) target the full range of environmental problems. Environmental NGOs obtain funding from different sources: for example, Greenpeace, FoE and many grassroots organizations rely mainly on individual donations; other NGOs accept corporate, government or aid agency funding.

Logging along the Thai/Cambodia border

Spurred by environmental problems linked to nuclear technologies, pesticide pollution, and overexploitation of natural resources, environmental activism first emerged as a widespread movement in the 1960’s. The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 is generally considered to be a key milestone. The main achievements of the movement over the last 30 years have been the raised global awareness about ecological problems and integration of the sustainable development concept into international politics. Environmentalists now aspire to be a leading force in shaping international agreements.

Camisea pipeline scars rainforest © Amazon Watch

It is largely accepted that these advances have not translated into high standards in policy making, still less to any fundamental change in behaviour of individuals and society in general toward sustainability. As the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook 2007 clearly indicates, environmental degradation continues at an alarming rate. Although one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is labelled “Ensure Environmental Sustainability”, the official MDG progress indicators offer little substance for environmental campaigners. The negligible attention to climate change - which could undermine every one of the other MDGs - symbolizes the need for a fresh approach to environmental activism at the start to the 21st century.
Effective Strategies

New media technologies emerging over the last decade could provide the catalyst to shake up the environmental movement. Overcoming political, geographical, censorship and communication barriers, cyber-activism has already achieved substantial victories. Organisations which depend on youthful activist memberships have not been slow to explore the potential of popular social networking websites to communicate their work although it is too soon to assess whether these are appropriate channels to attract new members or support for campaigns.

Logging campaign, US © Rainforest Action Network

A wide range of traditional strategies and tools remains at the disposal of environmental activists in the search for democratic change; some NGOs, such as the World Resources Institute, provide policy and scientific advice, while broad-based membership groups will engage in peaceful protests to stimulate media and consumer campaigns, public education and research; advocacy, lobbying and litigation for political and legal recognition of environmental values and rights.

Campaigners tackle a wider range of actors - not only businesses and governments, but also inter-governmental organizations, financial institutions, investors and consumers. Lobbying and engaging in alliances with these new stakeholders is often seen as the most promising of the reformist strategies. For example, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) trademark is widely adopted for labelling of sustainable timber products and involves working relationships between forest campaigners, logging companies, local community groups and retailers. Similar partnerships focus on the the use of market mechanisms such as ethical investment to promote sustainable consumption and production.
Radical Activism

In the past, radical direct actions and “no-saying” protests were the main instruments in raising public environmental awareness. However, as public trust and support for radical environmentalism declined, NGOs have increasingly turned toward moderate, solution-oriented strategies that seek to address the underlying causes of environmental degradation.

Medha Patkar © Gabrielle Hamm

Nevertheless, the days of radical hard-hitting protests by groups such as Earth First! which take direct, sometimes even violent, actions against those abusing the environment are far from over. Often, such actions remain the only effective means of resisting oppressive governments or corrupt corporations, particularly in developing countries. Yet, to resist corporate power, buttressed by the WTO rules and the ever-creative corporate greenwash strategies, radical environmental activism strategies have to be toughened by new communication tools and stronger alliances with social justice activists. For example, in India the founder of the Save Narmada Movement, Medha Patkar, was able to exploit global media coverage of her hunger strikes, allied to the cause of poor people threatened with displacement by the Narmada dam.
Eco-Justice

Social justice issues come to the fore in local campaigning. Over recent years local communities have become increasingly active in finding their own solutions to their immediate environmental and social problems. However, typically lacking financial muscle and awareness of their rights, local activists all too often face prosecution by corrupt governments and businesses. The fight for the environment, especially at grassroots level, is inseparable from the fight for the human rights.

Dealing with waste in India © Centre for Science and Environment

The eco-justice movement links the goal of environmental protection to the goals of social justice, peace, and the recognition of the rights of all marginalized and underprivileged people. Environmental action has to be driven by a strong understanding of what is just and fair, and be delivered through democratic institutions, such as representative grassroots organizations which have an immediate stake in the local environment. There are too many examples of solutions which merely drive the problem away from rich to poor communities.

Failures of eco-justice are also to be found at international level, in the abuse of the developing world by rich countries. From toxic waste dumped on the beaches of Somalia, a country with no government, to the attempted decommissioning of an asbestos-ridden French warship in an Indian dockyard, developing countries find themselves treated as second class environmental citizens. Climate change, the footprint of the rich on the poor, is the ultimate expression of environmental injustice.

Wangari Maathai © Martin Rowe / Women Thrive Worldwide

In the last three decades, environmental activism has emerged and strengthened in developing countries, symbolized by the award of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize to Wangari Maathai for her work with the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. However, many of these NGOs are financially dependent on governments and multilateral organizations, raising some doubt as to the incisiveness of their campaigns. Nevertheless, activists from developing countries increasingly participate in international environmental negotiations, often using the Internet to collaborate with international partners or receive uncensored information not accessible in local media.
Global Politics

G8 Edinburgh 2005 © Peter Armstrong

There is however a growing sense of frustration amongst NGOs in developing countries, and indeed marginalized communities in general, who feel that their interests are not adequately represented. They point to the transnational environmental NGOs’ domination of international processes, inter-sectoral partnerships and media coverage. For example, the majority of African NGOs did not have sufficient resources to participate in the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.

Although a proven mechanism for monitoring the international system, the increasing presence of environmental NGOs in national and international arenas has created difficult conflicts of interests. It is undeniable that the complexity of negotiations on multilateral environmental agreements demands the resources of highly qualified scientists and campaigners; yet the typical northern-based centralized organization necessary to sustain such resources can be accused of lacking legitimacy to represent the interests of grassroots activists, marginalized societies and those seeking eco-justice. Such uncertainties are seized upon by those politicians who feel threatened by the new pluralism and who are quick to draw attention to any shortcomings in transparency and accountability within the non-profit sector.

Similar dilemmas have emerged in recent years through the growing number of partnerships between environmental NGOs and industry, donor agencies and governments. Advocates of these partnerships are driven by concerns over the ability of the environmental movement to deal effectively with the challenge of globalization and the growing financial and political power of major corporations. Opponents of such close involvement with the private sector feel that it fundamentally undermines the traditional role of environmental activists as watchdogs and guardians of environmental justice.

NGOs are therefore under pressure to strengthen their legitimacy by pushing through much-needed reforms in their own community and to practice what they preach in empowering the poor to speak for themselves.
China

The Three Gorges Dam © WWF

Most environmental indicators in China are moving dramatically in the wrong direction, on a scale which threatens to destabilize progress achieved elsewhere. Yet the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people remain desperately in need of the benefits of industrialization. In a country with one of the most repressive governments in the world, where the concept of civil society is relatively embryonic and where freedom of information is at a premium, what hope can there be for striking a balance between the needs of citizens and the protection of both local and global ecosystems?

Demo in China © Out There News

Against these odds, there are promising signs of tolerance of environmental activists in China, far more so than human rights or social campaigners. There are believed to be over 2,000 environmental NGOs capable of mounting protest and legal challenge, with a track record of some success in prompting environmental regulations. There is speculation that the Chinese government welcomes a degree of local activism to compensate for its own failure to implement national environmental laws at municipal level.
Climate Change

Al Gore © climatecrisis.net

Climate change will be the issue on which the current generation of environmental activists will be judged. The years 2006 and 2007 have seen an astonishing transformation in the attitude of governments and corporations towards the desperate need for action, most remarkable of all in the US. The jury is still out in assessing whether this tipping point was reached through years of intrepid climate change campaigning or simply the impact of Al Gore’s powerpoint presentation timed neatly in the aftermath of one or two particularly nasty hurricanes.

Never before have the political winds been so favourable for climate change campaigners but there is a sense that the agenda is being seized by corporations and sub-national levels of government. Environmental groups are floundering with dilemmas presented by the era of cheap aviation, nuclear power and the headlong rush for biofuels. Many people are abandoning faith in established campaign groups and turning instead to individual actions in the home, often finding a sense of community through online networking and blogging in preference to traditional formal memberships. There is talk in the US of a new civil rights movement to address global warming. Active citizenship may be the only hope for overcoming the impotence of world governments and corporations to act in the face of imperatives.



This Guide has been compiled primarily by reference to the OneWorld archive of environmental activism articles and to an earlier version of the OneWorld Environmental Activism Guide first published in 2003 with material provided by Volunteer Editor Tamilla Held.

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