IN THE LATE 1800s, environmentalists were called conservationists, and most nature-related groups had little wealth or political power. These early environmental groups were actually small, regional clubs devoted to hunting or other forms of wilderness enjoyment. As Wallace Kaufman explains in his book No Turning Back: "The conservation movement began as the `club movement.' The clubs were formed after the Civil War by men who hunted and fished for recreation."

Kaufman reports that at some point nineteenth-century hunters and fishermen soon decided to dedicate their clubs to conserving the natural resources they so enjoyed:

Issues that today seem to have been brought to the public by the environmental movement were made hot topics a century ago by sportsmen. They protested industrial chemicals and mining waste that polluted streams and lakes. They attacked commercial net fishing...