9.8 The Emergence of the Environmental Movement
Environmental concerns continued to brush against and challenge anthropocentricism, but it would take the ravages of World War II and its chemical aftermath to shift mainstream attention onto the negative impact humans were having on the environment. In the 19th century Humboldt had written and spoken at length about the ecological and social devastation caused by mining and by growing monocrops on plantations, harms he witnessed first-hand during his travels throughout South and Central America. But mainstream Westerners would not begin to grasp the pervasive, devastating impact of industrialization and the toxic fallout it created until the 1950s.
At the same time that chemical companies were promoting the use of toxins to keep our food crops free of pests, a select group of scientists began to question and to research the ways in which humans were negatively impacting the environment. Among these, Eugene Odum helped cohere the modern environmental movement, beginning with his book Fundamentals of Ecology in 1953. He studied the human impact on marsh and coastal ecosystems and began to extrapolate his findings into a nuanced understanding of the biosphere, which includes all parts of the earth where life exists and the ecosystems nested within. Odum became the face of the growing environmental movement, appearing in such popular magazines as Time and Newsweek.
Key Figures in the Field of Ecology
- Gro Harlem Brundtland: Former Prime Minister of Norway, chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development, which produced the landmark 1987 report Our Common Future. She popularized the modern definition of sustainable development as meeting present needs without compromising future generations. Her work laid the foundation for sustainable policies globally and directly influenced frameworks like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
- Rachel Carson: An American marine biologist and author of the groundbreaking book Silent Spring (1962), which exposed the dangers of pesticides, especially DDT, to wildlife, ecosystems, and human health. Her research raised public awareness about the interconnectedness of all life and the unintended consequences of human actions. Carson’s work remains central to environmental ethics and regulation.
- Charles Darwin: A British naturalist who revolutionized science with his theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species (1859). His observations revealed the deep interconnections among species and the adaptive dynamics of ecosystems. Darwin’s insights into biodiversity and ecological relationships underpin modern ecology and environmental science.
- Ernst Haeckel: A German biologist who coined the term “ecology” in 1869, defining it as the study of relationships between organisms and their environment. Haeckel’s work helped establish ecology as a scientific discipline critical to understanding and preserving ecosystems.
- Paul Hawken: An American environmentalist, entrepreneur, and author known for The Ecology of Commerce (1993). He has been a leading voice in sustainable and regenerative economic thinking, promoting models like the circular economy.
- Alexander von Humboldt: A Prussian naturalist and explorer whose 19th-century travels in Latin America led him to view Earth as a connected, living organism. He was among the first to document human-caused environmental degradation, including deforestation’s impact on climate and ecosystems. Humboldt’s holistic view of nature anticipated ecological science and profoundly influenced later environmental thought.
- Eugene Odum: An American ecologist whose book Fundamentals of Ecology (1953) became foundational for the modern environmental movement. He emphasized ecosystems as integrated wholes, studying energy flow, nutrient cycling, and the impact of human activities. Odum’s work helped establish ecology as a key scientific discipline and advanced public understanding of environmental sustainability.
By 1962, biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring would strike such a chord that it became a national bestseller. In her book, Carson provided incontrovertible proof of the environmental hazards of DDT. First developed as a pesticide in Switzerland and adopted for selective use in Europe, DDT gained widespread use during World War II as a preventative against insect-born diseases including malaria (from mosquitos), typhus (from lice), typhoid fever and dysentery (from flies). Following World War II, DDT was cropdusted over fields and used in mosquito-plagued regions throughout the world. Carson unveiled to horrified readers that DDT not only killed the targeted insects, but also other insects, the birds that ate them, and the animals that ate the birds. It also caused infertility, threatening entire species of birds, and remained toxic long enough to seep into water supplies and to permeate the soils and the crops it was meant to protect. Carson concluded that it had contaminated food supplies throughout the world.
The work of Odum and Carson among others helped prepare the ground for sustainability to take root and develop into a prominent idea in the 1970s. In 1972, 119 countries took part in the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, and in 1984 Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Herlem Brundtland was appointed head of the World Commission on Environment and Development, tasked with exploring “environmental and development philosophies and put[ting] forward proposals for change and action. The resulting publication Our Common Future (1987) …. popularized the term ‘sustainable development’, a concept which has come to underpin social and environmental policy and practice ever since” (Page and Connell, 2020, p. 411). Our Common Future would likewise provide the most widely accepted definition of sustainable development, describing it as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations” (Brundtland Commission, 1987, p. 8). The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, became the first global conference aimed at encouraging collaboration among countries. Its action plan for sustainable development would serve as the standard until the UN released its Sustainable Development Goals [see Figure 2] in 2015.
[SDG art, again]
By the 1990s economists had begun to conceptualize economies as ecosystems closely connected with nature. Paul Hawken, for example, wrote The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability (1993) in which he argued that we must not only reduce consumption, but we must also provide “secure, stable, and meaningful employment for people everywhere” and “exceed sustainability by restoring degraded habitats and ecosystems to their fullest biological capacity” (p. xiv). Economists, businesses, and governments began to embrace circular, or closed loop, economies, which aim to enable resources and the products derived from them to maintain their value and their use for as long as possible. By 2004 tourism scholars were using living systems thinking to reimagine the linear economy of ongoing growth that undergirds traditional tourism. In 2015, the EU formally adopted its first circular economy action plan, realizing all of its goals in 2019. It adopted a new circular economy plan in 2020, which states the importance of tailoring solutions “to the outermost regions and islands, due to their dependence on resource imports, high waste generation fuelled by tourism, and waste exports” (European Commission, 2020, Section 5). In this statement, the EU underscores the devastating impact that tourism has had on regions and islands that lack the infrastructure to deal with the enormous amounts of waste generated by tourists.
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Key Takeaway
After World War II, the environmental movement gained momentum as scientists revealed the ecological devastation caused by industrialization, leading to global awareness and pivotal concepts like sustainability and circular economies, which reshaped how humans view their relationship with nature.
Significance to Regenerative Tourism
The late-20th century ushered in transformative ideas that underpin today’s regenerative tourism, emphasizing restoration, closed-loop systems, and the interdependence of natural and human communities.
Significance to Tourism
Seeing the harms caused by unchecked economic growth, tourism leaders began integrating sustainability as a key development goal aimed at “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations” (Brundtland Commission, 1987, p. 8). This shift has led many to embrace regenerative practices, designed to preserve the health of ecosystems and the wellbeing of local communities.
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