April 22, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
As the modern environmental movement ends its third decade, “we’ve arrived at the age of the little guy,” says Outside magazine.
While most major national organizations have been forced to trim their staffs and refocus their programs after losing support, the magazine says, much of the movement’s energy and passion has shifted to small local or regional groups that concentrate on problems affecting specific places.
Using the courts, the news media, the Internet, and aroused citizens, those grassroots organizations differ widely in their tactics and philosophies. Some lean toward conciliation and cooperation with government and industry, but others take a harder line.
The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, for example, has an impressive record of federal-court victories in Endangered Species Act lawsuits. “It’s millennial environmentalism, combat-style,” the magazine says. “They’re not selling calendars full of idyllic nature photography. They’re throwing torts like hand grenades.”
The magazine identifies eight other regional organizations as being particularly effective. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which works to protect canyon country, is “a sort of fighting Johnny Appleseed, coaching other regional groups in the art of grassroots galvanizing,” says Outside. The Mississippi River Basin Alliance uses “a chatty, collaborationist approach” to protect the river; Wild Alabama, by contrast, favors “a sawed-off style of advocacy.”
The magazine also gives sketches of how nine national organizations have changed. “The national green groups are going local,” the magazine reports, “trying to put their money — that is, your money — where it will do the most good.”
The articles are available on the magazine’s Web site at http://www.outsidemag.com/magazine/omindex.html.
