Even now, 16 years later, few would ever expect the former political foes, former Suffolk County Executives Michael LoGrande and Patrick Halpin, to ever break bread together.

But in December LoGrande and Halpin, who in turn proposed and launched Suffolk's efforts to use sales tax revenues to buy watershed lands, joined with several key officials at the urgent request of pine barrens guru Richard Amper in his Lake Panamoka home.

Amper convened the brainstorming session because he felt the region's environmental movement was in a dangerous stall. Suffolk's preservation efforts sputtered following devastating disclosures that county real estate officials had overpaid by millions of dollars for environmentally sensitive parcels. Last year, Suffolk bought only 84 acres.

Nassau and Suffolk counties also are facing severe fiscal woes, making money to buy land scarce even while the local real estate market booms. "There are about 70,000 undeveloped acres up for grabs and their future will be determined forever over the next decade," Amper said.

While no grand plan came out of the dinner, it was the first step to developing a new strategy that local environmentalists are launching this week to coincide with annual Earth Day celebrations.

In short, advocates are now looking to take Long Island's support for the environment and mobilize it for the first time into a frontline political force, not much different than powerful labor unions or even special interest groups such as the National Rifle Association.

This new political arm, the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum, will aim to enlist volunteers, back candidates and get directly involved in local campaigns where the environment is a key factor.

Until now, most environmental groups like the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, which are tax-exempt, nonprofit groups, are barred from making endorsements, running campaigns or giving money to candidates. The League of Conservation Voters, a statewide group that has played a limited political role - rating candidates on key issues and making endorsements generally in state races - has retrenched due to fiscal problems.

"Environmental groups have tried to get their message out in ways that are not overtly political," said Judi Pitsiokos, a Wading River Republican who is a co-chair of the new group and once ran for Riverhead supervisor. "There's no reason that environmental advocates can't play by the same rules as special interests, especially those adverse to the environment."

The new group is looking to draw from the 75 percent of the public that local polls portray as worried about over-development. They also see the Internet as a way to create a link to their backers, just as those opposed to the recent Iraq war were able to organize by almost spontaneous combustion. Their e-mail address is linaturevoters@aol.com.

Organizers say they hope to put together a data base with at least 100,000 names this spring and eventually increase it to 250,000. They also hope to raise as much as $250,000.

"I think there are a lot of people who want to know how they can help," said Amie Hamlin, the forum's project director, who until December worked for the league. "The environment is a critical issue, everyone knows it ... and because of that they want guidance on not only whom to vote for but how to help that person win."

Organizers say they expect to get involved in the Suffolk county executive race, endorse in all town supervisor contests and target two or three of those town races for more intense involvement.

In Nassau, backers say they plan to endorse in town supervisor races, and perhaps several key county legislative contests. But most important, they want to press, despite county fiscal problems, to create an independent revenue stream to fund ongoing environmental purchases, perhaps using a real estate transfer tax, though a more limited version than one that created a public firestorm several years ago.

Joseph Lorintz, the other co-chair, said such funding would allow local government to buy key environmental tracts such as the 50-acre Underhill property in Jericho, without a lengthy battle. "We don't want ... a disincentive to sell a home, but to create a fund that could be viable," said Lorintz, a Democrat who ran and lost for Oyster Bay supervisor.

Michael Dawidziak, a Republican strategist, said the environmentalists' new approach reminds him of the movement against the Shoreham nuclear power plant in the 1980s. "Until the anti-Shoreham groups did political action, they weren't for real," he said. "Once they began backing candidates and working in campaigns they became a force to be reckoned with."

"They can be a powerhouse if they work it right," said state Independence Party chairman Frank MacKay, who knows how to leverage his party's small numbers into major clout. "They can walk softly and carry a big green stick."