I don't think 'the right' (whatever that means) has abandoned the environment.
At least libertarians have not.
Check out www.perc.org, these are free market people who are extremely passionate about the environment and they are quite popular and have made great inroads to provide an alternative way of thinking about the environment compared to the leftist big government bureaucracy style of protecting it.
They support great projects like Oregon Water Trust, The Nature Conservancy and do research on how to think in an economically sensible way about these questions.
Here some cool videos, Terry Anderson about Wildlife in Yellow-Stone and about the history of property rights in Montana.