ABSTRACT
‘Environmentalism’ embraces such a wealth of ideas and themes that defining it is difficult. This chapter seeks to explore some, though inevitably by no means all, of the issues to do with environmentalism that link into the research and debates of academic Geography. A study of the ‘nature’ of environmentalism reveals that one is indeed dealing with a mass of interconnecting materials that can be assembled in many different ways to elucidate a particular point of view. The number of Green non-governmental organizations in the world continues to rise year on year, but at the same time all manner of highly ‘alternative’ and oppositional environmental groupings have sprung up, whose theatre of operation is largely outside the ‘normal’ realm of political activity. An important recent geographer’s review of shifts in global environmental agendas, reflecting upon how ‘international environmental policy’ influences the work of academic geographers, is Liverman.
