There was an ideological battle within the environmental groups like the Sierra Club.
The true environmentalists were crushed and the organizations became open border whores for the left.
This article has some interesting details:
Watermelons for 15-20 years. Its been obvious they were all commies
They became wildlife biologists and infiltrated usfs and BLM
The one I worked with admitted he was commie
AND
That he cooked the numbers in our spotted oel survey
I blew the whistle and never got another NTE 180 as a contract administrator ( gs 5 )