Friends of the Earth International: Negotiating a transnational identity

Abstract

The aim of this article is to assess the relationships between majority (South) and minority (North) world environmental groups by focusing on one of the largest transnational environmental organisations: Friends of the Earth International (FoEI):1 a federation of autonomous groups from 71 countries (see Appendix). FoEI's federal structure gives more power to southern groups than other transnational environmental organisations and FoEI has taken a relatively radical line on issues of global justice. Nevertheless, there have been arguments over strategy and ideology between northern and southern groups. The article examines how FoEI responded to a crisis in its identity over North–South differences in 2002–4. The trust developed through regular international meetings and a distinctive organisational culture allowed the network to rebuild its solidarity, although without ever fully resolving differences of ideology. It is argued that FoEI will be best able to maintain its North–South representation if it accepts that internal conflicts and debates over core ideological questions are normal for social movements.

Notes

1. For this article I am drawing on data gathered at the FoEI biennial meeting in Croatia in September 2004 and documents provided by FoE Australia on their work in FoEI.

2. In 2004 there were Greenpeace offices in 38 countries, 13 of which were outside the global North: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Fiji, India, Mexico, Lebanon, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey.

3. For more detail on Greenpeace WWF and FOE in the UK, see Christopher Rootes' article on the UK environmental movement, this issue.

4. The brief history in this paragraph is based on one from the FoEI annual report (2004).

5. There are 71 groups in 70 countries (two from Belgium); see Appendix.

6. Although FoEI began as a northern federation, the need to demonstrate a prior history of effective independent campaigning before being considered for membership shows that it does not fit the argument of Frank, Hironaka and Schofer (2000) that transnational mobilisation of the environmental movement precedes national mobilisation. Rather, the sequence of growth of ‘chapters’ of FoEI tends to support Johnson and McCarthy's (2005: 89) argument that a higher percentage of national environmental organisations in the South are likely to be members of transnational environmental networks than in the North because they have a greater incentive to seek the extra resources and legitimacy that membership brings.

7. Norwegian FoE is in a similar position.

8. This is also a consequence of the greater centralisation of resources in Greenpeace. Worldwide Greenpeace had an overall income of €158.5 million in 2004, with around a quarter of income being passed to the International Office. In contrast, FoE England Wales and Northern Ireland alone had an income of UK£5.48 million for its political and campaigning arm and UK£3.1 million for its educational charity in the year to April 2004.

9. National groups have to apply for support for specific activities: in 2004 FoEI distributed €800,000 to 38 of its member groups. Most support goes to Latin America, followed by Asia, then Africa, and then Europe. REDES/FOE Uruguay receives significant support because it is the base for activity that is significant for the whole network, such as an internet radio station ‘RadioMundoreal’ and a children's environmental network.

10. Various groups noted at the 2004 BGM in Croatia that they were not engaged themselves in campaigning on some of FoEI's core thematic areas nationally as there were other groups in their countries with better expertise in those fields; for example, Philippines on GMOs and Canada on mining. The 2003 Annual Report acknowledges financial support from IUCN, WWF and Greenpeace among others.

11. On ecological debt, see ENRED (the European Network for the recognition of the Ecological Debt), available at: http://www.enredeurope.org/principal.htm, and Ecological Debt Campaign (Ecuador), available at: http://www.deudaecologica.org/

12. In 2002–4 the countries represented on the Ex-Com were Australia, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Sweden Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

13. Although this does not entail sympathy for those who argue for more resources to be devoted to translation. The representative of one eastern European group suggested that if all groups sent only fluent English speakers to the BGM the network could save money.

14. Forty campaigners from FoEI groups and the Secretariat were at Cancun for the WTO meeting.

15. This should not be confused with the use of Open Space as a principle at the World Social Forums.

16. Although the criticism of consensus decision-making as ‘northern’ in PGA (Wood, 2005: 108) and the debatable criticism of it as ‘white’ by black power groups in the United States in the late 1960s (Polletta, 2002) might suggest as much.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian Doherty

This article is based on a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-155-25-0008) and carried out by the author with Timothy Doyle. I am grateful for the comments provided by Timothy Doyle, Chris Rootes and an anonymous referee for Environmental Politics.