THINKING BIG : Environment : Protecting Planet or Preventing Progress?

Every project conceived by humans to change the face of the world, from a housing subdivision in the San Fernando Valley to a giant dam in Egypt, has an environmental impact. But it was not until the late 20th Century that strong public opposition to building projects began to emerge.

Now the Green movement has become an important political player in Europe, and rare is the country without a vocal environmental force. Groups ranging from the World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, to Greenpeace have gained international stature and growing support for their concern about planet Earth.

To supporters, these groups are often the last line of defense between the world’s natural heritage and the unbridled desire of humankind to build. Environmentalists demand that builders do more thorough--and often more expensive-- studies and, sometimes, that the projects be abandoned.

To critics, the environmental movement is often a monkey wrench in the wheel of progress and an uneven balance when it pits a large dam against a small fish.

France is a case in point. The World Wildlife Fund office in Paris is waging fights over dams thousands of miles apart.

The first battleground is in the Loire Valley in central France, a region dotted with some of the world’s most beautiful chateaux. A group calling itself the Living Loire, with the support of the WWF, last year won an eight-year battle against the construction of a dam on the Loire, arguing that it would irrevocably change the river’s direction and might eventually lead to the death of the Loire.

Now the WWF is fighting proposals for other dams on the river.

The other front for French environmentalists is in the overseas department of French Guiana in South America, 5,000 miles from Paris, where the state-owned electricity company is building a $500-million dam to generate electrical power for the region.

The WWF contends the project will destroy 300 square miles of tropical forest in the territory and cause “incalculable” damage to the environment.

Although environmentalists admit that they have probably lost that battle, they now are taking up the fight against plans to build another dam there, and they say the electric company should look into ways to reduce French Guiana’s electricity consumption, which is already greater per capita than in France and is growing at a rate of 14% a year.

“We remain very vigilant there,” the WWF’s Pascale Robinet said. “That huge virgin forest must be protected at all costs.”