ABSTRACT
Once the catalyst for independence movements in the late Soviet period, environmentalism in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania has become greatly influenced by the processes of social, political, and economic transition. With the rise of the schizophrenic response of toleration and repression to liberal reform in an authoritarian Soviet Union, activists in the three Baltic states set out to use the environment as a specific representation for what the Soviet occupation had done to the Baltic republics in general. Each of the Baltic republics had their own environmental issues with which to deal. In Estonia, environmentalists focused on the ecological damage from phosphate and oil-shale mining in the north of the country. In Latvia, the aim was to prevent another hydroelectric dam on the Daugava, a central river splitting the country in two. Finally, in Lithuania, environmentalists set out to campaign for the closure of an ageing nuclear power plant and prevent the construction of another plant. Each one of these movements to protect the environment was a move against ecological degradation, while at the same time a challenge against the central planning of the Soviet economy and overall Baltic inclusion in the Soviet Union. In the Baltic republics, the environmental movements and the independence movements were inextricably linked, to the extent that Jane Dawson refers to a single movement she calls ‘eco-nationalism’ (1996).
