Green party environmental significance. The first green party in Europe was the Popular Movement for the Environment, founded in 1972 in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. The first national green party in Europe was PEOPLE, founded in Britain in February 1973, which eventually turned into the Ecology Party, and then the Green Party. Several other local political groups were founded in beginning of the 1970s and Fons Sprangers was probably the first Green mayor in the world, elected in 1970 in Meer, and active until 2006 for the Flemish Greens. The first political party to use the name "Green" seems to have
Ecology Party member. That same year the Leader Tony Whittaker and National Secretary Lesley Whittaker (founder members of the original PEOPLE party) greatly reduced their involvement with the party. At the 1977 Party Conference in Birmingham, the Party's first constitution was ratified and Jonathon Porritt was elected to the Ecology Party National Executive Committee (NEC). Porritt would become the Party's most significant public figure, working, with David Fleming, "to provide the Party with an attractive image and effective organization". With Porritt gaining increasing prominence and an election manifesto called "The Real Alternative", the Ecology Party fielded 53 candidates in the 1979 General