ABSTRACT
The term ‘environmentalism’ encompasses a sense of concern for the environment held by hundreds of millions of people across the world. It first found popular expression during the large-scale social, economic and political changes that took place in the late 1960s. In just three years between 1969 and 1972, the campaign groups Friends of the Earth (FoE), Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) were founded; communities across the USA participated in the first Earth Day; governments established their first environmental agencies; and the first major United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) was held in Stockholm, Sweden. A New York Times editorial summed up the sentiment of the time: ‘Call it conservation, the environment, ecological balance, or what you will, it is a cause more permanent, more far-reaching, than any issue of the era – Vietnam and Black Power included.’1
