Environmental activism and advocacy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 194

and a lack of skills. 4 With the further penetration of these technolo-
gies, this seems to be changing now. In lesser-developed regions access
to the Internet has been a much wider problem for environmentalists
and greens, for instance, in keeping updated with information, cam-
paigns and networks in a globalising green community. The digital
divide, of course, does not stop at the environmentalists' front door.
Although national environmental NGOs in the main urban hubs in
developing countries have been assisted with computer technology and
Internet access by their counterparts in the North and through official
development assistance, the more local organised and oriented NGOs
are still significantly deprived of the global informational flows and
networks. Second, the significant increase of Internet use by environ-
mentalists and NGOs also has drawn major attention of law enforce-
ment agencies and corporations. 5 Their surveillance of the contents of
Web sites and e-mail traffic, the seizing of computers and the national
and international linking of databases of environmentalists (especially
in its more radical forms) might have not been that large and sig-
nificant when measured against the background of the entire global
green community, but it did make specific sections of the greens para-
noid about the risks of surveillance online and more cautious in using
ICT and the Internet. Foreign hosts, encryptions, computer security,
establishment of mirror sites and resistance against Internet legisla-
tion have been some of the actions taken by environmentalists to pro-
tect themselves against this vulnerability. “Environmentalists have been
part of a larger constituency who are keen to protect cyberspace as
a public space, free from too much state and corporate dominance”
(Pickerill, 2001 : 367). The 9/11 event and its aftermath has certainly
changed the battlefield for the worse, especially for more radical seg-
ments of the greens. Recently, organisations, especially those such as

4

Based on her research in the United Kingdom, Pickerill ( 2000 : 15) provides a
useful categorization that illustrates the variety of computer and ICT use among
green activists, ranging from computer sceptics, information gatherers,
connected street activists, desktop activists and online coordinators to a
techno-elite of cyberactivists.

5

Several large corporations have active Internet managers who constantly
monitor Web sites and engage in cyberspace communications. Several national
intelligence agencies have become very active in cyberspace surveillance with
respect to, for instance, animal liberators, road blocking protestors and radical
environmental activists in general. This dates from before 9/11, but has, of
course, not diminished since then.