Environmental groupsand have used their enormous income to turn themselves into highly
professionalpublic interestgroups. Where administration, legal advice and
lobbying once depended on volunteers, today they employ professionals –
managers, lawyers, fundraisers, lobbyists and scientists. Most conservation
groups are wedded to conventional forms of pressure. Their political cam-
paigning focuses on the dissemination of information, lobbying and using
thelegal system to protect the environment. Conservation groups have
acquired growing influence within the policy process, engaging in regu-
lar dialogue with politicians and civil servants, and, by representing envi-
ronmental interests in standard-setting and enforcement, they often play
aformalroleinpolicyimplementation (Dryzek et al. 2003 ). Conservation
groups are involved in a wide range of activities, from habitat protection
to eco-labelling, often in partnership with state agencies, for which many
groups receive significant public funding (Jamison 2001 :ch.5). Institution-
alisation reaches its purest form where, as in Germany and the Nether-
lands, leading environmental groups are funded by the government ‘with
thedeclared objective to create a counter-lobby’ (Brand 1999 : 52). Conserva-
tion groups have become more institutionalised, therefore, in so far as they
are now mass-membership organisations which have acquired greater legit-
imacy and better access to policymakers. Where some conservation groups
have changed is in their willingness to broaden their agendas to include a
range of transnational environmental issues because of the obvious threat
tothenatural habitats they seek to protect. For example, major Sierra Club
campaigns include a ‘global warming program’, ‘smart energy solutions’
and ‘safe and healthy communities’ (Sierra Club 2006 ). The RSPB, recognis-
ing that the rich diversity of birds in the UK depends on the protection
of the habitats of migratory birds in other continents from environmental
hazards such as climate change, was an active participant in the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development (Rootes 2005 :31). However, apart from
developing this wider environmental perspective, the massive growth of con-
servation groups has involved no fundamental transformation in their aims
or strategies.^4 Organisations like the Sierra Club and the RSPB have always
beenpublic interestgroups; now they are simply bigger and better at it.
The process of institutionalisation has proved more difficult for groups
like Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace, which started out as radi-
cal social movements. Both were products of the era of ‘modern environ-
mentalism’. FoE was formed in the USA in 1969 by David Brower, a former
Sierra Club activist who was critical of that group’s unwillingness to use
confrontational methods. Greenpeace was founded in 1971 by Canadians
protesting against a planned US nuclear test on a Pacific island.^5 Both groups
quickly established a reputation for innovative campaigning, well-publicised
protests and direct action. Greenpeace, in particular, attracted international
attention through its dangerous, dramatic high-profile actions at sea against
nuclear testing, whaling and the killing of seal pups. Today, both groups
are huge international organisations: the FoE International federation has