Environmental movement is part of social movement for social change. Social movements may contribute to developing new political and economical structure and new values in the society. Many resources mention that the role and character of environmental movements have variation in several countries. They are dependent upon the particular problems in society that they have.The environmental movements choose environmental issues as specific issues and organization’s mandate. Even though the environmental movement has specific issue but in some cases founded that environmental movement also involved in the other issue such as anti dictatorship or anti war. Environmental movement as organizations that developed by people for some purposes and usually this organizations have character as organization that separate from the state or government.
The history of social movements in South Korea and Indonesia were also influenced by the environmental movement. Environmental movement in South Korea and Indonesia had important roles against dictatorship through environment issues. WALHI-Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Indonesian Forum for Environment) in Indonesia had long history against dictatorship. In other hand, the KFEM (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement), even thought formed after dictatorship era but this organization was united of eight local environment’s movement that had history against dictatorship in South Korea. Mostly, the founders of KFEM had relation with the movement under dictatorship directly.
WALHI and KFEM in the post-dictatorial period have developed closer relationship with the state because the new regimes have become more accommodative than the dictatorship regime. But there are still many difficulties in finding appropriate roles for the environmental movement. Actually, the new regimes have benefited from these relations because their authority was legitimized from the environmental movement. Another factor is the space of freedom that has expended. Historically, the environmental movement usually has a mandate to exercise social control over the government regarding environment issues.
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