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Environmental PoliticsPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713635072

Environmental activists and non-active environmentalists in AustraliaBruce Trantera

a School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Australia

Online publication date: 04 June 2010

To cite this Article Tranter, Bruce(2010) 'Environmental activists and non-active environmentalists in Australia',Environmental Politics, 19: 3, 413 — 429To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09644011003690898URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644011003690898

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Environmental activists and non-active environmentalists in

Australia

Bruce Tranter*

School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Australia

The environmental movement is no longer a ‘new’ movement and whatpassed as ‘new’ and unconventional forms of action have waned,increasingly displaced by cyber campaigns and conventional lobbying ofgovernments by environmental movement organisations. Examination ofthe social and political backgrounds of Australian environmental groupmembers shows that members of protest-oriented environmental groupstend to be leftwing and younger than average. However, those who playactive roles in environmental groups are not young and are far less likely tojoin protest groups. While young Australians are more environmentallyaware than ever before, they may associate participation in environmentalgroups beyond monetary donations and virtual activism with the behaviourof their protest-oriented parents and grandparents.

Keywords: environmental movement; environmental activism; Australia;postmaterialism; conservation

Introduction

With environmental risk perceptions spurred by mounting evidence of human-induced planetary warming (Stern 2006, Solomon et al. 2007) and the moreimmediate impact of the prolonged drought affecting many parts of Australia,‘the environment’ once again rose to prominence as a federal political issue.The Rudd Labor Government, elected on 24 November 2007, included, inaddition to a minister for the environment, a separate portfolio of ClimateChange and Water. The new government’s announcement of its ratification ofthe Kyoto protocol in December 2007 at the United Nations Climate ChangeConference in Bali was a significant symbolic step forward, while December2008 saw the release of the ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’, a WhitePaper outlining the Australian government’s carbon emission targets for 2020.The White Paper specified a minimum commitment to reduce carbon emissions

*Email: bruce.tranter@utas.edu.au

Environmental PoliticsVol. 19, No. 3, May 2010, 413–429

ISSN 0964-4016 print/ISSN 1743-8934 online

� 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09644011003690898

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to 5 per cent below 2000 emission levels by 2020 (Carbon Pollution ReductionScheme 2008). While this is less demanding than targets favoured byenvironmental movement organisations (EMOs), the fact that the federalgovernment has even formulated plans to act on climate change reflects theshift in public sentiment on environmental problems.

Environmental issues may not in themselves have decided the outcome ofthe 2007 election (Rootes 2008, p. 474), although opinions polls conductedaround the time of the election suggested that voters, particularly Labor voters,rated climate change as an important election issue. According to theAustralian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA), drought and climate changewere the most important environmental issues in Australia in 2007 (Phillipset al. 2008). When, in the 2007 Australian Election Study (AES) survey,respondents were asked to rank 14 political issues, environmental issues – ‘theenvironment’, ‘climate change’ and concern over the ‘management of water’ –taken together were more important than any other economic or social issue(Bean et al. 2008).1

While environmental issues elicit high levels of public concern, it remainsunclear how public concern translates into action over such issues. If we take‘action’ to include environmental group membership, evidence from theAustralian Election Studies suggests it has increased in recent years. However,drawing upon international survey data, Ivanova and Tranter (2008) foundpublic willingness to pay for environmental protection in the form of highertaxes or higher prices actually decreased in many countries over time. In thiscontext, it is timely to consider how willing Australians are to act upon, ratherthan merely express, concern over environmental issues.

In Australia concern over climate change, the prolonged drought and themanagement of water are all highly salient and politically sensitive issues. IfAustralians are becoming increasingly ‘green’ as gauged by issue concern, highlevels of participation in recycling practices and reduced water consumption, isthis ‘greenness’ also reflected in support for environmental groups? Ifenvironmental organisations have become increasingly institutionalised andenvironmental issues ensconced in mainstream political culture (Pakulski et al.1998, Rootes 2004), have the social and political backgrounds of activistsshifted as a result?

While several authors have examined the support bases of environmentalgroups in Australia (e.g. Papadakis 1993, Tranter 1996, McAllister andStudlar 1999, Pakulski and Tranter 2004) the present study diverges fromprevious survey-based research by distinguishing members of protest groupsfrom those of non-protesting environmental groups. Different levels ofengagement in such groups (i.e. active versus passive membership) are alsoexamined. Conceptualising environmental group membership in this mannerallows for a more nuanced understanding of participation and of thecharacteristics of different types of group members. Responses to newquestions designed by the author for the 2007 AuSSA are analysed in orderto address these themes.

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Social movement organisations

EMOs are an important component of the environment movement, with theirleaders, alongwith green politicians, comprising the public face of themovement.Manyorganisations employ a variety of tactics in order to achieve their goals, butit is conceptually useful to distinguish among EMOs on the basis of their maingoals, and as a result, their main tactical orientations. Conservation groups,whosemembers are ‘concernedwithwildlife andother preservation issues’ but donot challenge ‘the dominant social paradigm’, are often distinguished fromecologist groups who tend to ‘focus on the environmental issues of advancedindustrial societies’ and ‘may call for basic changes in societal and politicalrelations to address these problems’ (Dalton et al. 2003, p. 758). Ecologist groupsare more likely than conservation groups to engage in protest activities (Daltonet al. 2003, p. 758), adopting tactics that vary ‘from spectacular forms of directaction, as in the case ofGreenpeace’ to ‘expert andpatient lobbying, the preferredtactics of Friends of the Earth (FoE)’ (Dobson 1990, p. 3).

In Australia, perhaps the most prominent protest-based EMO is TheWilderness Society (TWS), whose membership was estimated at *50,000 in2007.2 With a small group of professional campaigners and a large volunteerbase, TWS has employed a variety of tactics since the Franklin River3

campaign in the early 1980s, including protest, conventional and increasinglyinnovative means for achieving its goals. Other high profile protest groupsinclude Greenpeace and FoE. Mirroring its international counterparts,Greenpeace Australia is a hierarchical organisation comprising a small groupof professional activists supported by large numbers of subscribers who are notactually members (Doyle 2001, p. 81). Greenpeace relies upon sensationalistpublicity stunts to highlight environmental issues, but ‘has always had limitednegotiations with governments’ and ‘other green NGOs’ (Doyle 2001, p. 83).Like Greenpeace, FoE is an international organisation. However, FoE inAustralia is a decentralized, grassroots organisation with strong social justiceunderpinnings, a non-hierarchical NGO that relies upon a consensus decisionmaking approach (Doyle 2001, p. 85).

In Australia, ‘conservation’ organizations such as Landcare have tended toadopt a lower profile approach. Established in 1989 by the federal (Labor)government, there are *4,000 community Landcare, Bushcare, Rivercare andCoastcare groups around Australia. Such groups were formed to deal withproblems of ‘land degradation and promoting sustainable agriculture . . .unique native flora and fauna . . . water quality and environmental conditionin . . . river systems and wetlands . . . coastal catchments, ecosystems and themarine environment’ (Natural Heritage Trust 2007). Conservation groups donot tend to engage in protest actions but attract large numbers of volunteerswho participate in activities such as replanting native vegetation followingdeforestation, or attempt to halt the erosion of coastlines (Natural HeritageTrust 2007).4

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is another international organizationextant in Australia, although according to Doyle (2001, p. 80; 154), it is also

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‘the most business – and government friendly environmental NGO’ the ‘mostpolitically pragmatic’ and ‘often mimics the industry line’. One of the mostprominent environmental organisations is the Australian ConservationFoundation (ACF) that has campaigned for environmental causes for over40 years, more recently also advocating indigenous issues (Pickerill 2008).However, with its conservative origins5 and predominantly lobbying approach,it is ‘seen as one of the more mainstream, moderate faces of the environmentmovement’ (Doyle 2001, p. 89).

Finally, the Climate Action Network Australia (CANA) is an umbrellaorganisation that links over 50 protest and non-protest environmental groupsand organisations, including TWS, Greenpeace Australia, FoE, the ACF andWWF. CANA was formed in 1998 ‘to increase the understanding of climatechange, and to encourage governments, businesses and individuals to under-take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and their climate changeimpacts’ (Climate Action Network Australia 2009).

Social background of environmentalists

Variations in the level of concern over environmental issues have beenexplained in terms of value priorities, age, gender, education, place andsocial class (e.g. Inglehart 1990, Tranter 1996, McAllister and Studlar 1999).Inglehart (1997) argues that citizens of advanced industrialised countries,particularly those born after World War II are more likely to holdpostmaterial values, to prioritise free speech and to seek greater say inpolitical decision making. Alternatively, materialists are more concernedabout economic and security issues.6 Values are claimed to be generationallybased, with those born after World War II and who grew up during therelative affluence and safety of the post-war period more likely to holdpostmaterialist values than their predecessors. Postmaterialists are morelikely than materialists to emphasise environmental protection (Inglehart1990), and so those who grew up during the post-war period are more likelyto be concerned about the environment than older, more materialistgenerations. Australian research shows that postmaterialists are indeed moreconcerned about environmental issues (Pakulski and Tranter 2004) andmore likely to join environmental groups than are materialists (Tranter1996), although generational differences in value priorities are minimal inthe Australian case (Tranter and Western 2003).

In a meta-analytic review, Zelezny et al. (2000, pp. 444–445) found that‘women reported significantly more general environmental concern than men’and are more likely than men to participate in ‘proenvironmental behaviour/activism’. A similar pattern was found in Australia with women more likelythan men to participate in demonstrations, although not more likely to joinenvironmental groups (Tranter 1996). Members of the so called ‘new class’ or‘new middle class’ have been found to exhibit pro-environmental behaviours(Kriesi 1989; Brint 1984), although Mertig and Dunlap (2001, p. 113) found

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that ‘membership in the new class . . . are poor predictors of support for thegoals of NSM in general and of support for environmentalism in particular’.

The notion of a ‘new class’ as a basis of support for environmentalbehaviour is in itself questionable; while ‘it is the social and cultural specialistsand human service professionals amongst whom support for the new politics isconcentrated’ (Rootes 1995, p. 227), the key factor underlying the apparentnew class support base is tertiary education. In Australia, Tranter (1996, p. 73)found no statistically significant association between new class location and thepropensity to be an environmental activist, but did find a strong and significanteffect of tertiary education and of postmaterial value orientations. Environ-mental activists tended to be tertiary educated, particularly graduates fromsocial sciences and humanities disciplines, and such people tended toparticipate in protest actions to a greater degree than non-graduates (Tranter1997). It is also possible, given previous Australian research on participation inenvironmental demonstrations (Tranter 1996), that women may be more likelythan men to become members of protest groups.

Finally, those who place themselves on the left of the political spectrum aremore supportive of environmentalism than those who place themselves on theright (Tranter 1996), with environmental activism and green voting far morestrongly supported by the left (Inglehart 1990, Dalton 1994, Tranter 1997). Inaddition to postmaterial values, Inglehart (1990) suggests that the ‘cognitivelymobilised’, or the highly educated, articulate, politically skilled and informed,are more likely to participate in the environmental movement, although inAustralia, McAllister and Studlar (1995, p. 25) qualify this with their findingthat cognitive mobilisation ‘plays a more significant role for activists than formore passive members’.

Environmental activism is stronger among the secular, or at least weakeramong those who participate in organised religions (McAllister and Studlar1999, Pakulski and Tranter 2004), while the link between environmentalprotection and alternative lifestyles, particularly followers of eastern spiritu-alism such as Buddhism has been documented (Kaza and Kraft 2000, Queen2000). In addition, Tranter (1996, p. 76) found that viewing nature as ‘spiritualor sacred in itself’ increased the likelihood of environmental activism inAustralia.

The background of environmental group members is therefore expected todiffer according to the repertoire of the group and also as to whether membersare active or passive. Compared to non-members, members of protest groupslike TWS are expected to be supported by younger, highly educated,postmaterialists with left of centre political orientations. On the other hand,members of non-protest groups, such as the Landcare groups whose membersare concerned with issues such as land degradation and water quality, areexpected to be older, ideologically more centrist and perhaps, given their focuson rural issues, more materialist than protest group members.

According to McAllister and Studlar (1999, p. 790), who distinguishedbetween various levels of commitment to environmental groups, ‘committed

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members are motivated by a strong sense of the urgency of greenenvironmental concerns, an urgency which is largely absent among ordinarymembers and the rest of the population’. Following Inglehart (1990) andMcAllister and Studlar (1995), environmental activists are expected to becognitively skilled (i.e. tertiary educated, politically informed), to hold left ofcentre political orientations, and to be younger than passive members ofenvironmental groups.

Data

Two data sources are accessed here. Data from the AES (1990 to 2007) arepresented to estimate the proportions of environmental group members in thepopulation of Australian adults and to enable comparisons over time (Joneset al. 1990, 1993, 1996, Bean et al. 1998, 2002, 2005). However, the main sourceof data analysed here is the AuSSA collected in 2007. The AuSSA is asystematic sample drawn from the 2007 federal electoral roll. It has 2583 caseswith a response rate of 39 per cent (Phillips et al. 2008).

The author designed questions for inclusion in the AuSSA to measureenvironmental group membership more precisely than it has been previously inAustralia. The questions distinguished members of protest and non-protestgroups in order to examine the contention that members of non-protestenvironmental groups are ideologically more conservative than protest groupmembers, and that they differ according to other socio-demographiccharacteristics, such as age and education. Secondly, an attempt was madeto differentiate members who play active roles in environmental groups fromthose who do not participate in, but merely subscribe or make donations to,organisations.

An initial question divided active from passive members of environmentalgroups in the 2007 AuSSA: ‘Are you a member of an environmental group ororganisation?’ The possible responses were: (1) Yes, an active member; (2) Yes,a non-active member; (3) No, not a member. A further question asked: ‘Is thegroup you are a member of. . .(1) Protest oriented (e.g. Wilderness Society,Greenpeace, etc.); (2) Non-protest oriented (e.g. Landcare, Bushcare, etc)’.

Missing data were not replaced for any variables with the exception of theleft–right political orientation scale.7 Approximately one-third of respondentson the left–right scale were either missing responses (7.2 per cent) or ‘can’tchoose’ responses (26.5 per cent). In order to minimise missing data for theregression analyses, missing data and ‘can’t choose’ responses on the left–rightscale were replaced using a linear interpolation algorithm in SPSS version 15.

Analyses

To begin, it is informative to consider how the level of environmental groupmembership in Australia has changed over time. The AES contains a usefulquestion that estimates the level of environmental group membership at each

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federal election between 1990 and 2007.8 Responses to that question suggestthat membership of environmental groups increased steadily from 2.9 per centin 1990 to 7.2 per cent in 2007.9 The AES does not, however, distinguishbetween protest and non-protest groups or levels of engagement.

The AuSSA results estimate the overall level of membership to be 8.0 percent of the Australian adult population in 2007, within the range of samplingerror for the 2007 AES (Table 1). Importantly, the AuSSA also indicates thatonly 2.6 per cent of Australians are active members, with twice that proportion75.4 per cent – claiming to be inactive. When membership is broken down bytypes of group, 2.8 per cent claim to be members of protest-oriented groupsand 4.3 per cent to belong to non-protest groups.

The AuSSA results also suggest that members of non-protest groups suchas Landcare are much more likely than members of organisations like TWS orother protest groups to be active within their groups. A crosstabulation of thetwo membership questions shows that 46 per cent of non-protest groupmembers are actively involved compared to only 15 per cent of protest groupmembers (Table 1). How can we account for these differences? One clue isprovided by examining the age structure of group members.

Respondents to the entire AuSSA sample range in age from 17 to 98 years,with a mean age of 50.9 and a median of 51. However, environmental activistsvary considerably from the sample average. The median age of active membersis 56 years compared to non-active members at 47, suggesting environmentalactivists are considerably older than average. However, these figures aresomewhat misleading, because they do not take into account the type ofenvironmental group. The median age of protest group members is 42 yearswith non-protest group members much older at 56. This is informative, as itsuggests that while active members are older, members of the more radicalgroups tend to be much younger.

Table 1. Environmental group membership (per cent).

Active vs.non-activemembers

(N ¼ 2510)

Protest vs.non-protest

group(N ¼ 183)

‘Active’ members 2.6 ‘Protest oriented’ group 2.8‘Passive’ members 5.4 ‘Non-protest’ group 4.3All members 8.0 Total 7.1Non-members 92.0

Protest groupmembers (N ¼ 72)

Non-protest groupmembers (N ¼ 108)

Total(N ¼ 180)

Active members 15.3 46.3 33.9Passive members 84.7 53.7 66.1

Chi squared p 5 0.0001.

Source: Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2007).

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Splitting active and passive members according to group type (i.e. protestand non-protest) further elucidates this association. The frequency for activeprotest members is very low (n ¼ 11) and the estimate for this category istherefore unreliable. However, passive protest members (41.5) are significantlyyounger that passive non-protest members (55) and active non-protestmembers (56) according to the 95 per cent confidence intervals in Table 2.These results suggest that although younger people are more likely than olderpeople to join protest groups, the young tend to be inactive members of suchgroups.

The social and political bases of environmental groups

The results presented above begin to shed some light on the background ofenvironmental group members in Australia. However, in order to examine thesocial and political bases of membership more rigorously, a multivariateapproach is adopted. A range of dependent variables are considered in Table 3with odds ratios presented from a series of binary logistic regression analyses(Agresti and Finlay 1997). In the first two columns, the dependent variablescontrast active members with non-members and passive members with non-members. In the third and fourth columns respectively, I contrast activemembers with passive members, then compare protest group members withnon-protest group members. Because the sub-samples consist only ofenvironmental group members rather than the full sample, sub-samples forthe latter analyses are much smaller. Bearing this in mind, more parsimoniousregression models are employed where the postmaterial values scale, the non-religious, professional occupation and middle class dummy variables areexcluded (as their effects were very modest). While the small samples forprotest versus non-protest members (n ¼ 172) and active versus passivemembers (n ¼ 190) suggest the need for somewhat cautious interpretation,the more complex models are based on large samples and are highly likely tohold among the population of Australian adults.

Table 2. Age and type of membership (median age).

Median age Mean age 95% CI

Active members 56 54.1 (50.2–57.9)Passive members 47 47.7 (44.7–50.6)Non-member 50 50.5 (49.9–51.2)‘Protest group’ members 42 43.3 (39.8–46.9)‘Non-protest’ group members 56 54.1 (50.9–57.2)Active, protest group member 51 47.6 (35.8–59.5)Passive, protest group member 41.5 42.5 (38.8–46.3)Active, non-protest group member 56 55.6 (51.4–59.7)Passive, non-protest group member 55 52.2 (47.3–57.0)Sample 51 50.9

Source: Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2007).

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Even after controlling for other social background factors, olderAustralians are more likely than their younger counterparts to be active inenvironmental groups. Younger people may be attracted by the excitement ofdirect action tactics employed by protest oriented groups, as they are morelikely to join such groups, but active engagement requires time commitment.One’s stage in the life cycle may well be important here, as many older peoplewith relatively greater autonomy from family and work responsibilities are ableto devote more time to participation.

Tertiary education distinguishes active from non-members, and active frompassive members, although it has a weaker effect for the remaining dependentvariables. These findings are in line with previous research on the educationalbases of support for environmental groups (e.g. Tranter 1997). The tertiaryeducated tend to hold liberal social and political attitudes and to have theanalytic and cognitive skills necessary for participation as environmentalactivists. As Rootes (1995, p. 230) suggests, tertiary education ‘has the functionof upsetting old prejudices, imparting new knowledge, broadening socialexperience, developing new skills of critical analysis and enhancing the self-confidence of its beneficiaries . . . to imagine alternative futures and, some-times, to act to translate that imagination into reality’.

While it was not my aim to specifically operationalise ‘new class’ schema inthis research, professional occupation as a proxy indicator of new classlocation did not distinguish active from passive members, nor members ofprotest from non-protest groups. In addition, self-assessed class location wasnot associated with any measure of membership of or participation inenvironmental groups at the 95 per cent confidence level.10 Social class, at least

Table 3. Social bases of environmental groups (odds ratios).

Activemembersvs. non-members

Passivemembersvs. non-members

Active vs.passivemembers

Protest groupmembers vs.non-protest

group members

Men 1.27 1.01 1.45 0.83Age (years) 1.026** 1.003 1.016 0.972*Degree 2.50** 1.03 2.10* 1.53Professional 1.32 1.26 – –No religious denomination 1.18 1.83** – –Engage in easternspiritualism

1.70 4.08*** 0.34** 1.13

Middle class 1.31 1.31 – –Left–right (scale) 0.884 0.894* 0.982 0.724***Postmaterial (scale) 1.852** 1.448* – –Non-active member – – – 3.99**Nagelkerke R2 0.11 0.14 0.14 0.32N (1923) (1984) (190) (172)

*p 5 0.05; **p 5 0.01; ***p 5 0.001.

Source: Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2007).

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as it is measured here, does not appear to be useful in distinguishing supportfor environmental groups, adding empirical support to the ‘death of class’thesis (Pakulski and Waters 1996), in this case in relation to aspects of socialmovement support.

The non-religious are almost twice as likely as those professing affiliation to areligious denomination to be passive members rather than non-members,echoing earlier Australian findings (e.g. Tranter 1997), but the effect for Easternspiritualism is even stronger. The AuSSA questionnaire contained a questionthat asked respondents if they engaged in an Eastern spiritual practice such asYoga or Buddhism.11 ‘Spiritualists’ are less likely to be active rather than passivemembers of environmental groups – around three times less likely (i.e. OR 1/0.34 ¼ 2.94). These results are somewhat counterintuitive, given the long historyof Buddhist-influenced non-violent direct actions in Australian environmentalprotests, such as forest blockades (Turvey 2006), and the fact that spiritualiststend to participate in environmental demonstrations.12 Taken together, theseresults may reflect willingness on the part of many with an interest in easternspiritualism to be environmentally active on their own terms, while remainingunconstrained by the participatory norms of environmental groups.

In the fourth column of Table 3, a variable is included as a measure ofpassive members of environmental groups to contrast them with activemembers. Passive members are four times as likely as active members to joinprotest groups as opposed to non-protest groups. This may be partly due to thequestion design, as ‘Greenpeace’ was given as an example of a protest group inthe AuSSA question. Greenpeace ‘members’ for the most part donate money tofund professional activists but are not usually themselves able to participate inthe activities of the organisation. However, the results may also indicate thatmany active members do not belong to groups that prioritise ‘green’ asopposed to ‘brown’ environmental issues (Pakulski et al. 1998), and that theytend instead to be involved in groups such as Landcare or Bushcare.

As in earlier Australian studies that have examined the social backgroundsof members of environmental groups (Tranter 1996, Pakulski et al. 1998,Pakulski and Tranter 2004), I found political ideology and value orientationsto be important correlates of group membership. Those who place themselveson the ‘left’ of a left–right scale are more likely than the ‘right’ to participate inenvironmental demonstrations, to be passive members of environmentalgroups and to be members of protest groups. The affinity of the left andpostmaterial dimensions outlined by Inglehart (1997, p. 246) in relation toGreen party support is also echoed here. While the left are, consistent with thepredictions of Inglehart (1990), environmentally responsive, postmaterialistsare generally more likely than materialists to be members of environmentalgroups. Nevertheless, value orientations do not distinguish active from passiveengagement in environmental groups, nor do they differentiate members ofprotest groups from non-protest group members.

Taken as a whole, these findings are in many ways consistent withexpectations based upon prior research, although none of the ‘usual suspects’

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including value orientations, political ideology, age, gender, education or socialclass consistently discriminate across all aspects of group membershipconsidered here. Importantly, in Australia, the groups that tend to enticeactive members are groups focussed upon conservation, such as Landcare,Bushcare and Rivercare. Alternatively, protest-oriented groups are more likelyto be supported by younger, passive supporters, who, beyond the payment ofsubscription fees or donations, may be content to rely upon the professionalactivists and salaried employees of EMOs rather than participate themselves.

Conclusion

Australia has a relatively long history of high profile environmental protestactions. Campaigns to protect wild rivers and lakes from hydroelectric powerschemes and to prevent logging in old growth forests have attracted considerablemedia attention, contributed to increased public awareness of environmentalissues, served as training grounds for environmental leaders and spawned greenpolitical parties (Tranter 1995, Papadakis 1998). Twenty-five years ago a rulingby the High Court of Australia prevented the damming of the pristine FranklinRiver, a major victory for environmental protestors (Crowley 1999, p. 189). Inthe decades since, the institutionalisation and routinisation of EMOs have seen areduction in protest actions and an increase in conventional lobbying tactics(Pakulski et al. 1998, Rootes 2004) as the leaders of EMOs have diversifiedtactically. As Rootes (2003, p. 256) suggests, ‘Protest remains part of therepertoire of environmentalism, but it is only one part of an increasingly diverserepertoire. Protest has not been supplanted but supplemented’. This diversifica-tion is partly because, with the exception of novel issues, mass media are nolonger as interested in staged protests (Jensen-Lee 2001; Hutchins and Lester2006) and partly because EMOs have relatively scarce resources for mobilisingmass environmental protests. In Tasmania, a hotbed of environmental protestssince the Lake Pedder campaign,13 willingness to engage in some direct actiontactics may have also been curtailed by legislation, following the imposition ofheavy penalties on individual forest protestors by the state government (Brown2004). In addition, the largest native-forest logging company in Australia andlargest hardwood-chip company in the world, Gunns Limited, has litigatedagainst individual activists, possibly reducing the incidence of future protestactions, although committed activists continue to engage in direct action to haltlogging operations in Tasmanian forests (Law Report 2005).14

Changes in the issue agenda may also have impacted upon the socialcomposition of environmental groups. In Australia, the drought was the mostimportant and urgent environmental issue according to the 2007 AuSSA.15

Such issues are more diffuse and less media-friendly than establishedspectacular and visually appealing environmental causes like the damming ofwild rivers or destruction of old growth forests. On the other hand, climatechange seems to have reinvigorated the environment movement in Australia.The large rallies that have been held around the country in recent years suggest

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that climate change is the new ‘radical’ issue for environmental protestors.Protests against Gunns Limited’s proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill have alsoattracted large numbers of supporters in Australian metropolitan centres, notonly in Tasmania. Mass protests such as these are usually only attempted whenthe issue in question is very likely to mobilise large numbers of supporters (andconsequently to attract media attention) and have been employed much moreprudently by leaders of EMOs in recent years. Nevertheless, some radicalactivists may continue to engage in direct actions as they view their actions as‘direct acts against their antagonists rather than as symbolic protests designedto attract media attention’ (Rootes 2007, p. vii).

Is concern over ‘the environment’ – at least as it is manifest throughenvironmental activism – still the domain of the young? The unsatisfyinganswer is yes and no. The results indicate that active participation in protest-based groups is perhaps less attractive for younger Australians than it oncewas. Moreover, participants in environmental demonstrations are not youngerthan average. Young people are willing to ‘join’ protest-based groups, but theyare less likely to be active in environmental groups. In fact, contrary to myexpectations, active members of environmental groups tend to be older thanaverage. They are also likely to be tertiary educated, although their politicalorientations are relatively unimportant predictors of being active as opposed topassive members of environmental groups. Perhaps the interpretation of what‘active’ actually constitutes is a factor here? EMO-related participation ininternet-based campaigns, for example, may not be perceived as ‘being active’.

The environmental movement is no longer a ‘new’ social movement. Withthe routinisation of environmental concerns in mainstream politics and theinclusion of environmental curricula in schools and university courses, youngpeople should be more environmentally aware than ever before. Yet, they mayassociate involvement in environmental groups with the behaviour of theirprotest-oriented parents and grandparents. Direct actions of the protest era ofthe 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s such as forest protests have waned, whileconventional lobbying of government and business by EMOs has increased. Asthe movement has changed, so too has the medium of choice for promotingissues and mobilising members. While some protesters still engage in directactions, actions that may offend mainstream supporters tend to be avoided byEMOs such as TWS (see Law 2001).16 Attempts at image management in orderto appeal to mainstream supporters are also apparent in the conservativelydressed environmental spokesperson (e.g. TWS in Tasmania), often moreclosely resembling the ubiquitous ‘suits’ of the politician and business personthan the radical environmental protestor of earlier generations.

Mobilisation has always occurred through networks in environmentalmovements (Diani 2003, p. 301); in fact some argue that movements only existwhen environmental groups and actors ‘are networked one with another andengaged in collective action’ (Rootes 2004, p. 610). New technology has fosterednew tactics and new forms of networking with cyber activism now as familiar toyounger environmentalists as direct actions and physical confrontations were to

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earlier generations of environmentalists (Pickerill 2006). While smaller scalelocalised protests still tend to rely upon direct actions (Rootes 2004), forAustralian EMOs the era of mass environmental protest has waned and directparticipation in physical collective actionmay no longer be themedium of choice.

Notes

1. AES survey respondents were provided with a list of 14 election issues (i.e.taxation, immigration, education, the environment, industrial relations, health andMedicare, defence and national security, global warming, management of water,unemployment, treatment of Aborigines, interest rates, the war in Iraq, terrorism)and asked ‘Which of these issues has been most important to you and your familyduring the election campaign? And which next?’ A combined total of 20.9 per centchose environmental issues (i.e. 7.4 per cent the environment þ 7.1 per cent globalwarming þ 6.4 per cent management of water) over health and Medicare19.7 per cent, industrial relations 15.6 per cent, taxation 10.6 per cent andeducation 10.1 per cent as the most important election issues, while a combinedtotal of 27.1 per cent chose environmental issues (i.e. 9.6 per cent theenvironment þ 8.5 per cent global warming þ 9.0 per cent management of water)over health and Medicare 15.4 per cent, education 12.9 per cent and industrialrelations 7.5 per cent as the second most important election issue.

2. This estimate is based upon personal correspondence with a TWS staffer in 2007.3. This high profile campaign successfully prevented the Tasmanian government

from constructing another hydro power scheme that would have flooded the wildFranklin River. The campaign attracted considerable public attention and exertedpolitical pressure prior to the 1983 Australian federal election, ultimately resultingin the newly elected Hawke Labor government intervening and halting theconstruction of the proposed dam (Thompson 1984). Examples of other highprofile actions include the wet tropics campaign in Queensland (1983–1987), antiuranium mining campaign in Kakadu National Park (1997–2003) and the wildrivers campaign in Cape York Peninsula (1994–2007).

4. Some environmental leaders also claimed that funding under the previousconservative Howard government flowed much more freely toward non-protestas opposed to protest based organisations (Tranter, 2009).

5. For example, the former Liberal politician and Chief Justice of the High Court, SirGarfield Barwick was the first president, while Prince Phillip, the Duke ofEdinburgh was also an early president of the ACF.

6. Value orientations were measured in the 2007 AuSSA using the followingquestion: ‘People sometimes talk about what the aims of this country should be forthe next ten years. Listed below are some of the goals which different people wouldgive top priority. Please indicate which one of these you consider the mostimportant? And which would be the next most important?

(A) Maintain order in the nation(B) Give people more say in important government decisions.(C) Protect freedom of speech.(D) Maintain a high rate of economic growth.

Those who chose options A and D were deemed ‘materialists’ and options B and Cas ‘postmaterialists’. All other combinations were classified as ‘mixed’. A scale wasconstructed for regression analyses scored 1 ¼ materialists; 2 ¼ mixed;3 ¼ postmaterialists.

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7. The left–right question stated: ‘In political matters, people talk of ‘the left’ and ‘theright’. How would you place your views on this scale, generally speaking?’ Theresponse categories ranged from 0 to 10 with a separate ‘can’t choose’ option alsoincluded.

8. The AES question stated: ‘How likely are you to join any environmental groups ormovements?’ The response categories were: (1) I’m already a member; (2) Not amember, but have considered joining; (3) Not a member, and have not consideredjoining; (4) Would never consider joining.

9. The proportion identifying as ‘members’ in each AES survey was: 19902.9 per cent; 1993 4.5 per cent; 1996 2.4 per cent; 2001 5.4 per cent; 20046.5 per cent and 2007 7.2 per cent.

10. Other independent variables were examined, including urban versus rural residenceand location in different Australian states, but as these were substantively lessimportant and showed weak effects they were excluded from the final regressionmodels.

11. How often do you personally do the following . . . Engage in Eastern spiritualities(e.g. Buddhism or yoga)’ ? Response categories: at least once a week; at least oncea month; several times a year; at least once a year; never. Those engaged werecoded 1 and ‘never’ coded 0.

12. Separate analyses show that spiritualists are three times as likely as non-spiritualists to have participated in an environmental demonstration in the pastfive years, controlling for their social background and political orientations.

13. Lake Pedder was ‘the jewel of Tasmania’s south–west wilderness . . . untouched byany development’ and ‘after the Second World War it became popular withbushwalkers’ (Buckman 2008, p. 14). Although declared a national park in 1955the original lake was flooded and expanded greatly in size in 1972 as part of theTasmanian government’s hydro electric power generation scheme. The Peddercampaign spawned the first (albeit electorally unsuccessful) green political party inthe world, the United Tasmania Group (Papadakis 1998: 172).

14. Perhaps this is why it is now more common for forest activists to engage in protestactions against the Tasmanian Forestry Commission (e.g. the Florentine Valleycampaign) rather than corporate forestry interests.

15. Asked to rank 10 environmental issues (i.e. drought, climate change, pollution,renewable energy, logging of forests, nuclear power, destruction of wildlife, wastedisposal, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation), 42 per cent selected ‘drought’,26 per cent ‘climate change’ and 11 per cent ‘pollution’ as the three mostimportant, while 72 per cent and 42 per cent saw drought and climate changerespectively as ‘very urgent’.

16. A successful exception of a direct action at least in terms of the media coverage itgenerated was the ‘Weld Angel’ – Allana Beltran – who perched high on a tripodduring the Tasmanian Weld Valley forest protest in 2006 and attractedconsiderable media attention. An ongoing example is the direct actions in theFlorentine Valley in Tasmania by groups such as Still Wild Still Threatened.

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