When you think of environmentalist royals, you probably think of Prince Charles.

But he really gets it all from his father, Prince Philip, who was at the forefront of the very emergence of British environmentalism.

A thread:

In the 1950s, if you were an "environmentalist", you had nothing to do with ecology. It meant you believed that a person's upbringing determined their behaviour more than their genes. A belief in nurture over nature in debates about education.

But in the 1960s, that changed.

Prince Philip had long been into country sports - shooting, etc - but his passion for wildlife really awoke in 1956 on the Royal Yacht Britannia, when touring Commonwealth countries ahead of the Melbourne Olympic Games.

That's when he became a devoted bird-watcher.

On a particularly boring stretch of ocean between New Zealand and the Antarctic, Philip began photographing birds.

And soon, this obsession had introduced him to the likes of Peter Scott, founder of the Severn Wildfowl Trust in 1946 (now @WWTworldwide).

By the late 1950s, Scott had already become somewhat famous as a BBC broadcaster on natural history - he was a major inspiration to David Attenborough. And in 1961 he helped found the World Wildlife Fund ( @WWF). He even designed its famous panda logo. He got Philip involved too.

Through the influence of Scott and fellow nature enthusiasts, Prince Philip's passion for birds became a passion for conservation in general.

Yet Britain's wildlife conservation trusts in 1960 were small. Collectively they only had about 3k members (+10k at @Natures_Voice)

Yet the number of trusts was growing. In 1963, one of Scott's collaborators, Max Nicholson, decided to organise a "National Nature Week" for the trusts. They got the Post Office to issue wildlife stamps, and organised nature trails for schoolchildren.

And they held an exhibition

The exhibition, held at Alexandra Palace, highlighted various endangered species, and attracted 46,000 visitors, including Prince Philip. He was impressed at the range of organisations there.

But, crucially, he asked whether they all knew one another.

They did not.

It seemed an opportunity for convening the various groups. Philip asked Nicholson to put a conference together - a forum in which to thrash out any differences within the growing movement for conservation and coordinate their efforts.

It took place later that year, in 1963.

The conference was entitled "The Countryside in 1970". It was rushed, but it did mean many conservationists forged connections for the very first time. It was a first step in forging a coalition.

But Philip wanted more from it.

To keep up the momentum, Philip suggested that more "Countryside in 1970" conferences be organised on by the RSA ( @theRSAorg), where he was president.

The RSA, as the UK's national improvement agency, attached to no particular interest group, was ideal.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arts-Minds-Society-Changed-Nation/dp/0691182647/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

With the RSA shouldering the administrative burden, the next two "Countryside in 1970" conferences, in 1965 and 1970, were no just for conservationists. They involved industrialists, civil servants, politicians, many of whom oversaw land for which there were conservation issues

The conferences covered everything from pollution, to rubbish disposal, toxic waste in rivers, and agriculture. Concerns about the beauty of the natural environment were combined with concerns for wildlife, health and litter.

And from them, a new understanding emerged.

Through convening these separate groups, each with their separate instincts to conserve their favourite kinds of wildlife, the conferences revealed the full extent of the danger to the natural world. The problems were interconnected.

And they were a threat to humans, too.

The conferences reinforced the shock revelations in Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring", which in 1962 revealed how harmful pesticides had accumulated in human breast milk.

Philip recommended it publicly, and even sent advance copies privately to government ministers.

At the conferences, with campaigners and experts presenting all of their findings to one another, the shocking revelations accumulated.

And with the full effects of smogs, oil spills, and pollution considered altogether, the arguments about conservation went further still.

To many, the problems seemed so massive and widespread, that the conservation of nature was not just a matter of human benefit. It was potentially a matter of preventing human extinction.

The term "environment" thus came to mean a concern for the entire planet, humans included.

As Nicholson, the original organiser put it, "out of a rabble of unrelated organisations unaware of one another's aims", the conferences created "a brotherhood of constructively aware and active groups."

It is, I think, a remarkable case of the power of convening.

This is not to say, of course, that Prince Philip invented modern environmentalism (though some involved in the conferences actually claimed as much).

But the conferences he started did play an important role both in the UK and abroad.

It was on the suggestion of one of the organisers that 1970, for example, was designated "European Conservation Year". And study group members presented at the White House in 1965.

What had started as a small group of British bird-watchers was rapidly becoming a global movement.

In Britain alone, whereas the combined membership of British wildlife trusts had been only 3,000 in 1960, but the mid-1970s it had risen to 100,000.

The 1970s also saw the creation of new groups like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and precursors to today's Green Party.

At the 1970 general election, for the first time ever, polled voters cited the environment as a concern.

And the incoming prime minister, Edward Heath, who spoke at that year's "Countryside in 1970" conference, created a new Department for the Environment.

(1970 was also, incidentally, the year that Philip' son, Prince Charles, became so involved in environmentalism. At the final "Countryside in 1970" conference he chaired its steering committee for Wales.)

And beyond awareness, the conferences directly impacted policy, too.

For example, many of the proposals from the second conference, in 1965, found their way into the Countryside Act of 1968.

To ease the impending wave of car-owning leisure-seekers to the countryside during weekends and holidays, it sought to create many more country parks.

Few people now remember the "Countryside in 1970" conferences. But they are a testament to the immense power of convening disparate groups, as well as importance of organisations, like the RSA, able to do the convening.

For more, see my new book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arts-Minds-Society-Changed-Nation/dp/0691182647/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=