Paper short abstract:

During the industrialisation in Biscay (Basque Country, Spain) a set of environmental conflicts emerged, provoked by this process. Even though the conflicts had the same causes (mining and pollution), they provoked different responses due to the presence of diverse ideological frameworks.

Paper long abstract:

The process of industrialisation developed in Biscay (Basque Country, Spain) from 1880 to 1980 originated a set of socio-environmental conflicts, such as the related to Orconera Iron mining company in the first years of the XX century; the campaign against industrial pollution in Erandio in 1969, which was harshly repressed by the Franco’s Dictatorship; or the campaigns carried out by the environmentalism since the 1970s. Despite the fact that all these socio-environmental conflicts were very close related to the changes in the social metabolism, and, therefore, the same environmental situation, they developed in diverse ways because of the existence of different ideological frameworks that conveyed those environmental situations in a particular way. In fact, until the formation of environmentalism as a social movement, the socio-environmental conflicts were dispersed over this period.

The emergence of environmentalism enabled society to do a constant analysis of the environmental situation, creating a new level of opposition to the consequences of the industrialisation process. Hence, while, until the 1970s, only some aspects of the environmental situation created by industrialisation were a matter of social interest, since the formation of environmentalism that situation became a global subject of discussion in the Basque society. Thus, it can be considered that this change was possible thanks to the convergence of a set of ideologies and social movements, such as conservationism, citizens’ movement and antifrancoist left, that allowed the making of environmentalism.