Portal:Environment/Selected biography/7

Jonathon Espie Porritt, CBE, (born 6 July 1950) is a British environmentalist and writer. Porritt appears frequently in the media, writing in magazines, newspapers and books, and appearing on radio and television regularly.

In the 1970s, Porritt was the driving force behind the Ecology Party. As chairman of the UK Ecology Party (now the Green Party) from 1978 to 1984, he presided over changes that made the party much more prominent in elections. Under his stewardship, membership grew from a few hundred to around 3,000. In 1984 his first book, Seeing Green, was published. In this year he also gave up teaching to become Director of Friends of the Earth in Britain, a post he held until 1990.