Long-Term Change in Human Impact and Environmental Perceptions: A 40-Year Case Study of an Environment-Focused Non-Governmental Organization

3.1. An Original Environment-Focused NGO

There are many types of environment-focused non-governmental organizations (NGOs): there is a wide diversity in their scope, goals and doctrine. Their delimitations are somewhat arbitrary, with indistinct edges and numerous intermediaries connecting them [1,8].

Some NGOs are natural history societies based on a given taxon or with a more general focus, involving threats to particular areas or species, such as the British Phycological Society and the Société Linnéenne de Provence, respectively [8]. They play a very useful role at a time when academic research is abandoning certain areas of ‘classical’ natural history and taxonomy, wrongly judged to be outdated (see, e.g., [9,10,11,12,13,14]). NGOs focused on one taxon obviously have a positive role in the protection and management of species of this taxon, but they sometimes behave like lobbies and implement unnecessary measures to favour their beloved taxon and enhance its abundance artificially; failure to take into account the impact of enhancing one species on other compartments of an ecosystem is the opposite of ecosystem-based management. For example, a bat protection NGO has asked, sometimes successfully, the Port-Cros National Park (Provence, France) to build shelters and drinking troughs for non-threatened (according to the IUCN Red List) bat species; when they were asked if this did not harm other nocturnal consumers of insects, including a truly endangered species in Provence, the frog Discoglossus sardus, the answer was confused. It reflected the fact that bat lovers had not even considered the question [15,16]. In addition, the ecological approach of some of these NGOs is often outdated, dating back to the mid-20th century.

Other NGOs act primarily at the international level, such as IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and Greenpeace. Although their objectives are theoretically broad, they often focus primarily on high-profile species with strong public appeal, such as birds, mammals, and turtles, which easily garner widespread support. The focus on this kind of ‘deluxe diversity’ comes at the expense of the ‘obscure diversity,’ with species that play a more important role in enabling the ecosystem functioning and providing ecosystem services and goods [16,17,18,19,20,21]. This trend has also been called ‘Walt Disney effect’ by Bianchi and Morri [22]. As a result, there is a substantial bias with regard to the choice of taxa for which research funding is made available, a bias that is excessive when it comes to funding conservation, with an overwhelming dominance of birds and mammals [23,24].

Many NGOs were created to respond to local environmental problems. For example, in Corsica, Tavignanu Vivu opposed the creation of a garbage dump likely to pollute the aquifer [4]. They are often ephemeral. Some of these NGOs, however, privileged private enjoyment of nature rather than real environmental objectives. They can thus oppose a development project which will benefit thousands of people but which spoils the landscape enjoyed by a resident; this is the famous NIMBY syndrome (Not In My Back Yard) [25,26,27,28].

Finally, Green parties, which base their ideology on ecology, are also worth mentioning here. Their role has been crucial in getting governments to address environmental issues worldwide. However, their references to ecology often date from the mid-20th century. In a way, this is an ecological perspective based on a quasi-religious approach. However, this is subconscious: the concepts of ecology from the 1950s constitute a sort of sacred book, like the Bible or the Koran, which is immutable [18,19,29,30]. Their take on biodiversity has remained a question of ‘how many species?’ and ‘the more species, the better’, whereas today it is generally considered that the number of species is the worst descriptor of biodiversity [31,32]. Furthermore, the Greens are focused on a few emblematic issues, such as opposition to civilian nuclear power, GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) and diesel fuel (without critical analysis). At the same time, they sometimes neglect other environmental issues.

A common point among many environmental NGOs is ‘fixism’. Ideal nature is in perfect equilibrium and stable. All change, real or supposed, is due to humans and must be fought against. However, scientific ecologists have long pointed out that an ecosystem is not stable [33,34]. As Dayton [33] wrote, ‘No community is stable in the sense that it does not change’. Furthermore, ‘Counterintuitively, constant change—the dynamic state—is the source of long-term stability in communities; try to block a change in the short term, and you ensure inimical change in the long term’ [35].

The original feature of the MNLE, as an environmental NGO, is that it is based on science (see below), that it acknowledges that science does not deliver definitive truths but evolves over time (unlike revealed religions), and that it does not oppose man to nature, but rather considers man with nature and within nature (see below).

3.2. Science at the Core of the Environmentalist Doctrine

Unlike the discourse of many environmental NGOs, Naturellement, the MNLE magazine, reflects a careful pursuit of scientific rigor. Certain concepts, now classic in the academic sphere, were highlighted very early in Naturellement. Frequent errors were corrected at the risk of surprising some readers accustomed to an oversimplified or even simplistic discourse. Some examples follow.

From the 1980s, Naturellement discussed global warming and the responsibility for greenhouse gases [36]. The concept of sustainable development was used by the MNLE, before and after the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in June 1992, in which it participated [4,37,38,39,40].

In a remarkable article on the forest, published in Naturellement, Vincent Labeyrie recalled that ‘With few exceptions, the forest does not produce more oxygen than it consumes. Has it not been written that forests are the lungs of our planet and provide the oxygen essential to our breathing? And yet, it is untrue’ (Labeyrie [41]; translated from French). Of course, Vincent Labeyrie explained in detail why a forest in equilibrium does not produce oxygen: the decomposition of dead leaves and wood consumes as much oxygen as is produced by photosynthesis. For an environmental NGO, it was bold to challenge a conventional cornerstone of scientific communication and the prevailing views shared by most other NGOs.

Unlike most environmental NGOs, which focus on the protection of a few species (for example, birds or bats), the MNLE and Naturellement have dared to speak of an ecosystem-based approach. Robert Barbault wrote (in [42]): ‘There is no point in wanting to preserve this or that species. It is even a rather perverse approach, which does not take into account the reality of biodiversity. The ecosystems must be considered as a whole, and not the elements that compose them.’ And Brigitte Berland added: ‘An ecosystem-based approach has several advantages over a species-centred approach, by allowing natural communities to continue to evolve, and by conserving a greater number of species (...)’ (in [42]; translated from French).

More recently, Naturellement dared to publish an article [43] explaining that the domestic honeybee Apis mellifera is only one of the pollinators and by no means the best and that it is the diversity of pollinators (several thousand wild species) and not the domestic honeybee, which ensures pollination. Furthermore, the current decline in domestic bees was due more to bee parasites introduced by beekeepers, such as Varroa destructor, than to pesticides used by industrial agriculture, which, of course, does not mean that these pesticides would not affect the environment, on domestic bees and humans [43,44,45,46,47]. This message was courageous because it challenged the scientifically biased views held by most environmental NGOs.

3.3. Taking Humans into Account

The motto of the MNLE is ‘Humans and Nature’. This means that we do not protect the environment against humans but with humans, i.e., at the same time as humans [4]. This is the definition of sustainable development, with its threefold focus: nature, economy and social justice [48,49].

Analysis of the content of Naturellement shows the importance of four issues linked to humans: transport, agriculture, water and peace. On these points, the MNLE position agrees with that of political ecologists (the Greens).

The question of transport is important because transport contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and transport availability contributes to human well-being. The MNLE has always favoured railways, waterways and public transport over private cars, trucks and planes [50,51] (Figure 2).

Many articles in Naturellement have dealt with agriculture. The position was consistent with that of most environmental NGOs. Traditional agriculture would be more efficient than industrial agriculture, which consumes large amounts of water and pesticides to produce corn often intended for livestock feed. Faced with global warming and drought, the construction of reservoirs (in French ‘bassines’) to store water has been severely criticized. These reservoirs would not solve the drought problem but aggravate it, even becoming one of the causes of drought [4].

Figure 2. A cartoon by Claude Ferran, in Naturellement, comparing road and waterway transport: one barge can replace a hundred trucks. It illustrates an article in favour of waterways [52].

The MNLE and its magazine Naturellement have extensively featured water management [3,4]. According to the MNLE and many environmental NGOs, water is a common good for the people of the Earth. It should not be privatized or diverted for unsustainable agricultural uses (see above). In parallel with the World Water Forums (WWFs), organized by governments and by water multinationals suspected of seeking to privatize water, alternative forums were organized simultaneously in the same cities. The Alternative World Water Forums (AWWFs) were counter-events arising from alternative and anti-capitalist movements that brought together civil society actors. During the 2014 WWF in Marseilles (southern France), the MNLE was an active co-organizer of the AWWF counter-event [53,54].

Peace has been the focus of the MNLE’s combats. It shares this priority with ‘green’ NGOs, but not with most environmental NGOs, focused on other topics and issues. The MNLE is a member of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), and as such shared the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize [55,56].

3.4. A Discourse That Has Changed over Time

Analysis of the content of Naturellement (number of pages) shows that certain themes have lost importance over time, that others have gained importance, and finally, that certain themes have always been neglected (Table 2).

Among the themes that have regressed, the most striking case is that of the ‘Forest’ theme (including fires). In the 1980s, it represented 16% of pages, declining abruptly, becoming negligible in the 2020s. The initial importance of the forest theme can be explained by the interest of Suzanne Pommiès, one of the founders of the MNLE, for the forest. A workshop devoted to the forest, with more than 200 participants, was organized in October 1983. It should be emphasized that this interest in the forest in the 1980s was often seen through the eyes of foresters, focused on its exploitation. The forest was, for them, just a source of wood, sometimes from plantations, threatened by pests (insects, fungi); according to these foresters, dead wood should not be left in place [57]. Fortunately, Labeyrie [41] pointed out that dead wood is an essential element in the functioning of the forest ecosystem, both as a source of nutrients, as a food for insects, and as the basis of food webs. The decline of the theme ‘Forest’ in Naturellement does not fit the world literature trend, which shows an increase, although a non-significant one (Table 4). At the global scale, deforestation and fire were and still are a major concern [58,59]. The reasons for this mismatch between Naturellement and the world literature could be that, in Western Europe and especially in France, forests are steadily spreading, despite forest fires, and have now reached their largest surface area for several centuries [60,61]. In addition, France has an efficient policy of prohibiting construction outside urban cores (dispersed habitat; in French, ‘mitage’). Without such a policy, these scattered developments significantly exacerbate the severity of forest fires in countries like Greece and Portugal. As firefighters work to protect isolated homes, the fires can quickly spiral out of control [62,63].

Table 4. Change over time, in the world literature (number of articles), in the themes covered in Naturellement. Within themes, keywords are the same as in Table 2. In green, significant increase. ns: not significant.

The themes ‘Rivers’ and ‘Floods’ have slightly declined in Naturellement, since the 1980s (Table 2). This is in contradiction with the trend of world literature (Table 4). Public perception and the scientific literature attribute a greater number of extreme events, including severe flooding, to global warming. As far as Western Europe is concerned, an increase in flood severity is however not confirmed. Rather, the maximum occurred several centuries ago, and the increase in the impact of flooding on humans is generally due to growing urbanization in the floodplain of streams and rivers [63,64,65,66,67,68].

Overall, the themes related to ‘Nature’ (including Ecology, Forest and Floods) declined in Naturellement from 29% in the 1980s to 8% in the early 2020s (Table 2).

The theme ‘Pollution’ abruptly declined in Naturellement, from 18% (1980s) to 1% (2020s) (Table 2). This is unsurprising. Within the European Union (EU), thanks to binding directives, States and cities have been forced to build efficient wastewater treatment plants. For example, the opposition of elected officials in Marseilles was broken by the imposition of very heavy financial sanctions from the EU. At the same time, industrial discharges have been significantly reduced. Today, the rivers are no longer sewers, and you can swim without risk from the beaches at Marseilles [4,19,69]. Does that mean that pollution is no longer a problem? This is obviously not the case. Other pollutants, previously present but neglected, such as microplastics and pharmaceutical products, must now be considered (e.g. [70,71,72]). The decline of the theme ‘Pollution’ in Naturellement is completely opposite to its significant increase in the world literature (Table 4). Two reasons can be put forward to explain this contradiction. (i) The situation in the EU does not represent the global situation. (ii) There is a sort of research lobby on pollution; research institutes have sophisticated devices for measuring pollutants (e.g., trace metals, organic pollutants) and it is tempting to use them. But if pollution, at the doses observed in nature, can be responsible for stress and even mortality for the individual, it often has no impact on the population and, in some cases, at the ecosystem level [19]. Contrary to the perception of the public, stress (cold, heat, wind, fear, love, etc.), materialized by the production of stress enzymes, is often beneficial for the individual and even necessary for its longevity; this benefit is called hormesis [73].

The decline of the theme ‘Nuclear power’, from 5% to 1%, in Naturellement is surprising, given that the MNLE has always been a supporter of civil nuclear power, considering it as an acceptable risk (Table 2) [74,75]. This support constitutes a major difference compared to almost all other environmental NGOs worldwide [76]. Nuclear power is not popular anywhere; the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters induced a real shift against nuclear power in several countries. In Italy, negative opinions reached 74% after the Chernobyl disaster; in France, however, negative opinions have never been in the majority, fluctuating between 17 and 45% [77]. The Greens’ rejection of nuclear power was originally based on solid scientific arguments, but failure to take into account changes in technology, risks and issues (including climate change) can give the impression of a certain ideological dogmatism [78,79,80]. How can we explain the decline of the theme ‘Nuclear power’ in Naturellement? Perhaps the members of the MNLE were led by the dominant discourse (the doxa), that of the Greens.

Overall, the themes related to ‘Human impact’ sharply declined in Naturellement from the 1980s (31%) to the 2020s (7%): Pollution, Waste, Noise, Invasive species, Hunting and Climate change. In contrast, themes related to ‘Human activities’ strongly increased, from 20% to 49%: Agriculture, Cities, Transport, Social issues (e.g., democracy, pacifism, poverty, social justice, solidarity and women’s rights) and Human health. The same occurred with the themes related to ‘Management’, from 18 to 35%, mainly Water (drinking water, drought, water management and water resource) and Land use planning (Table 2). This is consistent with the trend in the world literature (Table 4). This is also consistent with the trend of the Green parties’ ideology. Green parties initially relied on volunteers and activists, focusing mainly on environmental concerns. Subsequently, the desire to increase support and electoral acceptability has driven changes in their methods, which have become more ‘professionalized’, and in their ideology [76,81]. A political ideology is a set of political concepts or ideas related to each other [82]. Although it is more implicit than explicitly admitted, the unspoken message could have been: ‘We have been too environmental; now, let’s be social’ [76]. Green party ideology shifted to respect of others (anti-racism, refugees, disabled people, women), tolerance, social justice, abolishing unemployment, and participatory democracy [76,83,84]. In this way, the ideology of the MNLE has followed trends in the Greens’ ideology.

Four principles guide most Green parties worldwide [84]. (i) Ecological wisdom reflects an environmental ethic: human responsibility for sustaining the natural world and the necessity of doing this to continue benefitting from the services nature provides to humans. (ii) Social responsibility emphasises the fair distribution of social and natural resources. (iii) Appropriate decision-making highlights the need for an inclusive, participatory and democratic decision-making basis. (iv) The non-violence principle.

‘Protection of nature’ has never been a major theme in Naturellement, fluctuating between 3 and 5%, with a peak (9%) in the 1990s (Table 2). This contrasts with its significant increase in the world literature (Table 4) but is consistent with the trend observed in Green parties (see above).

The theme ‘Europe’ has always been negligible in Naturellement. This is very surprising, as European Union (EU) directives have played a paramount role in protecting species and natural habitats and improving water quality. These directives were imposed on sometimes reluctant States (e.g., France) and local elected officials [19,69]. This limited reference to the EU contrasts with the pro-European commitment of the Green parties of the EU [85,86,87,88].

3.5. Possible Biases

Considering only one or two keywords per page of Naturellement can mean that certain keywords, which appear frequently, but almost always below the second rank, do not appear and their importance may thus be underestimated.

The content of Naturellement may not reflect all the activities and concerns of the MNLE. Other indicators could have been congresses (every three years) and university summer schools (every year). Unfortunately, there are no precise records of all these events; in some cases, reports were never written or have been lost. This is common in NGOs relying on volunteers and activists, who may not properly manage their archives. This further underline the importance of a printed journal, widely distributed and kept in libraries, even in the internet and digital age.

The memories of the ‘long-term witnesses’ to the history of the MNLE (Table 5) are generally a poor reflection of the quantitative analysis of Naturellement, with some obvious inconsistencies; for example, a witness cited ‘Europe’ and ‘Law’ as major themes, while their weight was negligible in Naturellement; another witness cited ‘Biodiversity’ in the recent period (2000s and 2010s), while it peaked in Naturellement in the 1990s and subsequently declined (Table 2). Moreover, the memories of the three long-term witnesses sharply differ from each other (Table 6). Does this reflect a bias in the content of Naturellement, or the fragility of human memory? The concept of a shifting baseline, or historical amnesia, has been developed by Pauly [89]; total oblivion occurs after 50 years, approximately two human generations [90,91,92,93,94,95]. Partial oblivion may have occurred after a few decades, the present influencing the memory of the 1980s and 1990s.

Table 5. The three main themes, per time period, according to the ‘long-term witnesses’ (Brigitte Berland, Jean-Claude Cheinet and Christian Pellicani) and our quantitative analysis of the content of Naturellement (see Table 2).

Table 6. Percentage of similarity between the ‘long-term witnesses’ and Naturellement main themes (see Table 5).

3.6. Are There Any Similar Analyses of an Environment-Focused NGO over Time?

Others than us have undoubtedly tried to tell the story of the changing trends in an NGO’s priorities over time. But many of these studies may be gray literature written in languages other than English. Despite extensive research, we only found one, that of Demesy [7].

In fact, Demesy’s study is not really comparable to ours. The author studied a French journal, La Hulotte, launched in 1972 and devoted to fauna, flora and nature for almost 50 years. This journal does not express the interests of an environment-focused NGO, but of a passionate amateur naturalist, Pierre Déomb. Its style and presentation are original, somewhere between a scientific journal, a literary work and a comic. Because of his articles’ high quality and popularity, his journal has been highly successful, with thousands or tens of thousands of readers. Demesy’s study does not concern the content of La Hulotte, but rather the perception its readers have of it, the assimilation of its content by the general public and its impact on other media (written press, radio and television); this impact has always been high, peaking between 1985 and 1997 [7].