The movement was founded in 1982 by a group of environmental activists, including Michalis Tremopoulos (now an elected councillor in the Thessaloniki Prefecture and a member of the Executive Secretariat of Ecologist Greens) and Yiannis Tziolas, who are still active.
The early ideology of the group was influenced by Murray Bookchin's social ecology, and the ideas of André Gorz, Ivan Illich and Cornelius Castoriadis.
The movement's first major campaign was opposition to the Thessaloniki Ring Road, which was planned to lead through the urban forest that surrounds the city, requiring the felling of thousands of trees.
The group held demonstrations on the site of the works in the forest and in the main streets of the city, including one march attended by 2,000 people, but the construction of the new road eventually went ahead.
In 1984, a small group of university students in Thessaloniki, most of whom were members of Oikologiki Kinissi, began their first attempts to treat injured and sick wild animals.
Another focal point of action is the nearby biotopes, like the forest of Mount Chortiatis or the two Ramsar wetlands (the deltas of the Axios, Loudias and Haliacmon rivers, and Lakes Koroneia and Volvi).
Motivated by its anti-war and non-violent positions, the group declared its opposition to the war in former Yugoslavia, the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian Government, and NATO interference, and tried to draw the Greek public away from support for Slobodan Milosevic.