Systems, Scientists, and Sovereignty: Dai Dong and the Limits of Transnational Environmentalism

"Systems, Scientists, and Sovereignty: Dai Dong and the Limits of Transnational Environmentalism"

My paper examines the motivations, successes, and failures of an international NGO named Dai Dong.  After emerging from the peace-oriented Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1969, Dai Dong leveraged the authority of scientists (especially biologists and ecologists) in efforts to highlight the social, political, and economic origins of the environmental crisis in a global, transnational perspective.  In 1971, Dai Dong's creation and distribution of the Menton Statement captured worldwide headlines, garnered support from thousands of scientists on six continents, and encouraged the United Nations to include greater scientific expertise in its preparations for the upcoming UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.  Building on this success, Dai Dong organized and held an Alternative Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, which sought to overcome the limitations of national sovereignty inherent in the UN.  At Stockholm, however, the Third-World scientists attending this alternative conference highlighted how Dai Dong's ideas overlooked the political realities of the developing world, particularly regarding national sovereignty and population planning.  I argue that Dai Dong mistakenly rooted their systems-oriented vision of global problems with industrialized-world bias; and, I will compare their failures regarding national sovereignty and transnationalism with the success of other international environmental NGOs, like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which emerged around the same time.