Cody Ferguson. This Is Our Land: Grassroots Environmentalism in the Late Twentieth Century .

Abstract

Cody Ferguson’s This Is Our Land: Grassroots Environmentalism in the Late Twentieth Century makes an important contribution to environmental history by reminding us of the significance of local struggles and movements. All too often historians tend to focus on the national story, including the assaults on federal regulation, especially during the Reagan administration and beyond, and in the process they neglect the stories on how local movements were able to use legal and legislative strategies and the media to win important victories. The major exception to this has been studies of the environmental justice movement. The author examines three overwhelmingly white local environmental organizations: the Northern Plains Resource Council in Montana, the Southwest Environmental Service in Arizona, and Save Our Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee. These case studies function as models of scholarship and analysis, but they also serve to make a broader point by describing “how citizen activists understood environmental issues not merely as matters of science but of justice and good governance” (5). In addition, Ferguson demonstrates how each organization understood its efforts to protect the environment as a way to increase democratic involvement in the political and regulatory process. Moreover, participation in these local struggles led members to identify with the broader national and even international environmental justice movements.