In August 2014, amid a severe economic downturn in the Albertan economy caused by plummeting oil prices, an interdisciplinary group of scholars convened at the University of Alberta in Edmonton to discuss the effect of small-scale and subaltern organizations on the environmental movement in Europe and the Americas. Following this conference, Canadian environmental and Indigenous historians Jonathan Clapperton and Liza Piper published an edited collection titled Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing featuring contributions by many of the scholars who attended the Edmonton conference. Published in 2019, the collection is an interdisciplinary investigation of environmental movements in the Western hemisphere since the 1960s.

Clapperton and Piper, along with the authors featured in this collection successfully demonstrate the importance of “small green” and Indigenous activism in bringing about broader environmentalist objectives. The authors employ the term “small green” to contrast small-scale, local environmental activism with the “Green Giants,” large, widely recognizable environmental organizations like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund. While it is difficult to quantify whether small green and Indigenous activism have had more of an effect on environmental objectives than the “Green Giants” in the period under review, the book is a convincing demonstration of the centrality of these everyday environmentalists to the wider environmental movement.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, including historical scholarship, interviews, online and print media, government and organization documents, and archival sources (Algonquin Park archives and the Coal Association of Canada being two of the most interesting), each author focuses on a region, province, station, or environmental feature. This zoomed-in approach enables a detailed discussion of localized events. By using local case studies, the authors emphasize the importance of locality to small-scale activist organizing while drawing connections between distant places. The editors should be commended for this approach, which serves their point well that disparate groups and organizations were connected in many ways, and that small organizations have been effective because of, not despite their localized nature. At the same time, many authors in the collection adopt a transnational framework, comparing activist efforts across national boundaries. The book effectively underscores local diversity without sacrificing general principles and shared experiences of the environmental movement that can be seen in different places and at different times.

The editors recognize the vast body of literature on the subject they write on and indicate where they aim to extend these inquiries or critique them. By drawing together two separate subjects of inquiry – “everyday environmental activists” and Indigenous peoples resisting colonial pressures – they underline the successes of small-scale activist efforts and their historical impact. This crucial point illustrates the editors’ active attempt to give their subjects agency while telling a story different from mainstream narratives. This is one of the book’s greatest strengths. An example that highlights this approach is Clapperton’s discussion of the interactions between the Nuu-chah-nulth, a group of fourteen First Nations including the Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, Toquaht, and Ucluelet, and environmentalists in Clayoquot Sound, on the western edge of Vancouver Island. Clapperton sees this interaction as being shaped largely by the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, who successfully capitalized on the presence of two colonial forces – non-Indigenous environmentalists and the forestry corporation MacMillan Bloedel – to create new economic, political, and discursive spaces for themselves.  In so doing, Clapperton argues these nations were able to re-assert sovereignty over their traditional territories and the resources contained within them. As shown throughout the book, and specifically in Clapperton’s chapter on the relations between Nuu-chah-nulth nations and environmentalists in Clayoquot Sound, Indigenous communities and environmental activists were not always on the same page. Indeed, these diverse groups often have come into conflict when one party threatened the sovereignty or claims to authority of the other. Highlighting the disagreements, in addition to the alliances, between groups often considered to be working toward shared goals adds nuance to environmental and Indigenous historical scholarship of Canada.

The work presented in Environmental Activism on the Ground continues that of previous scholars who have already identified the importance of lower- and middle-class people to the broader environmental movement. While acknowledging that significant amounts of literature have been focused on larger, more recognizable organizations, they aim to contribute to the growing body of scholarship focused on non-elite members of the movement. Further, they knowingly continue the work of scholars who have shown how the cultural and environmental heritage of Indigenous rights have enabled environmental protection of valued places which contributes to the ongoing conversation around how Indigenous worldviews affect lifeway struggles. By drawing together these topics, the editors successfully engage with discussions outside the mainstream of Canadian historiography and offer a corrective to the limited discussion of Indigenous peoples in the history of Canadian environmental activism history. This is another strength of the collection, enough to make it a worthwhile read for students and scholars of environmental history, activism history, and Canadian and North American history more generally. In contrast to earlier historians, Piper and Clapperton argue that the movement’s growth was not linear but rather was felt unequally in different places and at different times. In addition, Clapperton and Piper find discussion of the internal dynamics of environmental organizations, pressures shaping these organizations’ policies, and recruitment and support practices in a historical context lacking in contemporary scholarship. By effectively tackling these points, the authors contribute to broader discussions in their disciplines.

The collection has a self-identified positive tone, employed by the authors to contrast with doom-and-gloom messaging common to environmental activism. This decision adds to the collection’s value to current discourse surrounding environmental activism in which narratives of decline feature prominently. Unsurprisingly, Environmental Activism on the Ground was generally well-received; it was named an honourable mention for the Alanna Bondar Memorial Prize by the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture (ALECC). Frostburg State geographer James Saku lauded the book as a contribution to discussions regarding economic deprivation and environmental abuse and First Nations peoples. Similarly, the University of Hawai’i, Manoa political scientist Sarah Wiebe praises the collection’s interdisciplinary approach as one of its greatest strengths. While Saku criticizes the collection’s difficult use of unfamiliar terminology, it is in fact one of the collection’s greatest strengths. It better represents the contexts each author is writing from and the terminology relevant to their disciplines, regions, and national frameworks. It does not group disparate communities together, but rather lists names of individual First Nations and communities. Although the argument could be made that this choice limits the collection’s accessibility to readers unfamiliar with these discussions, it allows the authors to more accurately – and more respectfully – represent the subjects they write about. One critique that should be mentioned, however, is the lack of chapters written by the Indigenous activists and communities which feature so prominently in each chapter. While many of the authors are experts in Indigenous history or culture, none except Tobasonakwut Peter Kinew are writing from the perspective of someone whose community, and effectively sovereignty, are being directly challenged by colonial development projects. Including more chapters written by Indigenous activists themselves, advocating in favour of or against resource development projects on their lands, would have improved the collection’s effectiveness.

In closing, the editors identify future areas of research they feel would be positive contributions to the study of environmental history and small-scale and Indigenous activism. The collection deals with gender in a limited way, which Clapperton and Piper acknowledge while calling for further discussions to use gender as a central analytic category, particularly in future discussions of ecofeminism. They also acknowledge that future discussions should include analyses of the role of social media in facilitating environmental activist efforts and call for more local case studies to further shape the discussion of the importance of place to environmental organizing. This second point is highly relevant; in an increasingly globalized world where activist groups, including Indigenous activists, can spread their message instantaneously to people all over the world, an analysis of the effectiveness of such online activism would be highly relevant. Whether numerous views, likes, comments, and shares on social media translates into direct action is a worthy question.

This collection is well-timed. At Fairy Creek in British Columbia, First Nations land defenders and environmental activists are strongly resisting the removal of old-growth forests. However, as at Clayoquot Sound, local First Nations communities are divided on the issue as some, like the Pacheedaht First Nation have a revenue-sharing agreement on logging activities in their territories with the provincial government. Similar events are taking place throughout Canada. These events directly relate to the themes explored by the authors featured in this worthwhile contribution to environmental activism history. The authors who contributed to this collection have made important additions to the scholarly literature on small-scale environmental activism history in Canada. These additions have successfully demonstrated the significance of small green activism to the broader environmental movement and included Indigenous perspectives in a way that has not yet been done. For these reasons, Environmental Activism on the Ground represents an important contribution to the field of the history of environmental and Indigenous activism in Canada and adds much-needed nuance to a complex historical issue.

References

“ABMBP 2020.” ALECC. ALECC, 2021. Accessed October 31, 2021. https://alecc.ca/alanna-bondar/abmbp-2020/.

“Factbox: Fairy Creek Blockades: The Dispute over Logging Canada’s Old-Growth Forests.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, June 7, 2021. Accessed November 2, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/fairy-creek-blockades-dispute-over-logging-canadas-old-growth-forests-2021-06-06/.

Clapperton, Jon and Piper, Liza. Environmentalism from Below: Appraising the Efficacy of Small-Scale and Subaltern Environmentalist Organizations. Rachel Carson Center: University of Alberta, Edmonton, 2014. Accessed October 31, 2021. https://www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/events_conf_seminars/event_history/2014-events/2014_conf_ws_sem/conf_edmonton/140807_ws_edmonton_confrep.pdf.

Clapperton, Jonathan and Piper, Liza, eds. Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2019.

Saku, James C. “Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing.” American Review of Canadian Studies 51, no. 2 (April 3, 2021): 355–57. Accessed October 31, 2021. doi:10.1080/02722011.2021.1914997.

Wiebe, Sarah Marie. “Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 39, no. 2 (2019): 83-85. Accessed October 31, 2021. http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fenvironmental-activism-on-ground-small-green%2Fdocview%2F2481913087%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D14771.