Evidence for Hope

5

Earthscan–Panos: Favourite son, viacuckoo-in-the-nest, to friendly rival

JON TINKER

In 1974, Maurice Strong, IIED Board member, was head of the newly formed UN Environment Programme (UNEP). He concluded that though public awareness was a key element in UNEP's mandate, it was almost impossible to produce accurate and forceful information from within the UN. His ingenious solution was for UNEP to fund an independent organization to produce what UNEP could not publish itself – and for which governments could then not hold UNEP politically responsible. Strong invited IIED to examine this idea; its report somewhat predictably concluded that Strong's concept was a splendid one, and requested a year's UNEP funding to test it out.

Late in 1974, Richard ...