The Impact of Democratization on Environmental Movements

This chapter examines the impact of democratization on environmental movements in Asia. Environmental activists trace the roots of South Korea’s environmental movements to the democratization of the 1970s and the early 1980s. The South Korean environmental and democracy movements also utilized a common confrontation strategy to accomplish their goals. Like South Korea and Taiwan, the Philippines also reveals the crucial impact of democratic consolidation on environmental movements. In the Philippines, the environmental movement developed as a subsidiary of the broad democracy movement in the late 1970s. The case of the Haribon Foundation is a good illustration of how a traditional conservation group, caught in the swirling tide of the democratization process, turned into a politically active and socially oriented environmental organization in the mid-1980s. In Hong Kong, environmental movements started as partners to democracy movements in the early phase of democratic transition.