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Torrey Canyon: The Political Dimension

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Natural Environment Research Council), Monks Wood, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

It is forty years since the Torrey Canyon oil-tanker disaster of March/April 1967. The unprecedented scale of the pollution and its impact on the Cornish coast is commonly perceived as an important trigger to the environmental movement of the 1970s. The article focuses on the political response to the immediate stranding and destruction of the tanker, the pollution of the beaches, the legal and scientific advice tendered, and the longer-term repercussions for ‘the machinery of government’. If not a trigger, such exposure to public criticism accelerated the incremental pace by which ministers and their officials responded to the increasing significance being given to pollution issues.

Key Words: Environmental movement • Oil-tanker disaster • Pollution

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