9471 ecoterrorism and dangers of env policy 1990

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April 12,1990

EcoTERRoRIsIM:THE DANGEXOUS FRINGEOFTHEEWIROTALMOVEMENT

INTRODUCTIONAs he twenLdth anniversaryof Earth Day approaches, environmentalactivists and private citizens alike are reflecting on the state of the earthsecology and what policies best canmake the world cleaner. One environmentalmatter, however, is receiving little attention. Individuals and scattered bands ofenvironmental or ecological radicals, usually called ecoterrorists, have beensabotaging industrial facilities, logging operations, constructionprojects, andother economic targets around the country.They have inflicted millionsofdollars in damage and have maimed innocent people.These ecoterroristsare a tiny, ringe group. They in no way representAmericas broad environmental movement. Yet, mainstream environmentalistsand the press remain strangely silent about the atrocities committedby theecoterrorists. By failing to police their own movement, and by failing todenounce loudly and openly the ecoterrorists, mainstream environmentalistsrisk bringing their entire movement into disrepute. It thus is time formainstream environmental groups and their supporters in Congress to disas--sociate themselves from those who-useviolence in the name of the environ-

ment and to see that they are brought to justice.THE ROOTSOFECOTERRORISM

In the early 1970sa lone environmental activist, identified onlyasThe Fox,engaged in a sustained campaign of em-sabotage, also termed ecotage, againstChicago-areafirms.or three years he committed acts ranging from vandaliz-ing the officesof corporations to more serious and dangerous crimes suchasplugging industrial drainsand smokestacks. Around the same time, a group inMinnesota called the Bolt Weevils and one in Arizona called the Eco-raiders carried out similar activities.


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From Fantasy to Action. The concept of ecoterrorism gained some attentionin the book Ecotage!, a do-it-%ourself)guide published in 1972with the sup-port of Environmental Action. Based on the results of a contest soliciting eco-sabotage ideas, this book extolled the activities of he Fox, who, it argued,deserves special credit because he has put his ideas into action, whereas formany, ecotagewill remain a fantasy. The book also praised the Billboard Ban-dits in Michigan, the Eco-Commandoes in Florida,,who carried out their owndisruptive activities, and contended that if Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henryand George Washington were alive today theyd be ecoteurs by night.s2

While authors Sam Love and David Obst explained that weare not advocat-ing that those who buy this book go out and try each one of the tactics in-cluded, they added that it is important for readers to become aware that suchideas do exist and that there are already groups actively involved in hplement-ing some of them.d

ecotage in his novel, TheMonkey WrenchGang. In this story, four peopleroam the West wreaking havoc, destroying power poles, railroad lines,billboards, and any other sign of civilization that mar the landscape. The bookconcludes with the blowing up of a bridge over the Colorado River. The booksmessage: those genuinely concerned about the environment are entitled to usevirtually any tactic, perhaps excluding murder, to stop development. Abbey,who died last year, became the spiritual adviser and symbol for activists whoturned to outlaw resistance. If opposition is nos enough, we must resist. And ifresistance is not enough, then subvert, he said.

A few years later, environmental activist Edwyd Abbey romanticized

THEEARTH IRST! MOVEMENTIn 1981,Dave Foreman,a former lobbyist for the Wilderness Society,founded Earth First! This group, Foreman admits, was formed to inspireothers to carry out activities straightfrom he pages of meMonkey WrenchGan even though Earth First!, we agreed, would itself be ostensibly law-abid-ing. Strictly speaking, Foreman callsEarthFirst! a movement rather thanan organization; there are nomembership lists nor officers, for instance. But

1 Sam Love and David Obst, e&., Ecotagel (NewYork PocketBooks,l.972).2 aid ,pp. 17,l3,11-12.3 Ibid,p.l5.4 Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang(NewYork J.B. LipphwttCo.,1975).Gushed a review in theNuhunulObserver,the book would makeyou want togoout and blow up a dam. Blurb, front wver of paperbackedition.5 Quoted inElizabeth Kaufmann, Earthsaving:Here Is a GangofReal Environmental Extremkts,Ru&bon,July 1982, p. 118.6 Dave Foreman,Earth irst!Theh p s s i v e , October1981,p.41.

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the group, with about 10,000people receiving its newsletter, provides a focalpoint for those interested in destructive and violent forms of protest. EarthFirst! as an organization does not support or condone illegal or violent ac-tivitiesrunsa disclaimer in the newsletter. However, itfdds: what an in-dividual does autonomously is his or her own business.Details forDestruction. Yet Foreman joined environmental activist Bill-Haywood to write -Ecodefme:A-$?eZd-Gui&to-iUonkzywh?nching,book thathas sold more than 10,000 copies. While purporting to be for entertainmentpurposes only, its 311 pages offer detailed advice on how, illegally and violent-ly, to sabotage attempts to develop land and other resources. It describeshowto drive spikes into trees to shatter chainsaws and sawmillblades when thesecut the trees and logs.This tree spikingcan injure lumberjacks and millworkers severely. Road spikes are recommended to flatten tires. Methods fordestroying roads, disabling construction equipment, and cutting down powerlines are discussed. In one chapter, the authors explains that power lines arehighly vulnerable to monkeywrenching from individuals or small groups.During an Earth First! demonstration at the Arches National Park in mid-1981, power lines in nearby Moab, Utah were cut. Foreman said that EarthFirst! was not directly responsible for such acts, but he added that Otherpeople inEarth First! have done hings, not asEarth First! though... EarthFirst!, a group, is not going to do any monkey-wrenching. But if people who getthe EarthFirst! newsletter do that, thats fine.gIn a later interview he went even further, arguing that monkeywenching ismorally required as self-defense on the part of the Earth.1o

DEEP ECOLOGYUnderlying the activities of many members of Earth First! and probably mostem-terrorists is the ideologyof Deep Ecology,which places the protection ofnature above the promotionof humankind.The principles of Deep Ecologywere first enunciated in 1972by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess. Californiasociologist Bill Devall and philosopher George Sessionsof Sierra College inCalifornia are among the more prominent American Deep Ecologists. Naess

7 B i d8 Dave Foreman andBillHaywood,eds.,Ecodefense:A Field Guide to Morhymmching, 2nd ed. (Tucson,Arizona: Ned Ludd Books,1987),p.4.Foreman alone authored the first edition.9 Quoted in Plowboy Interview, Dave Foreman: No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth,The MotherE d ews, JanuaryFebruary1985, .21.10 Kaufmann,op. cit.,p.119.

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advocates a long range, humane reduction [in the worlds population] throughmild but tenacious political and economic measures.Thiswill make possible, asa result of increased habitat, population growth for thousands of species whichare now constrained by human pressures. According to environmentalistAlston Chase, a newspaper columnist and chairman of the Yellowstone Nation-al Park Library and Museum Association, who does not support Naesss views,poqts, philosophers, economists, ~4 physicists joined, the ecologists in asearch for a new beginning. Through what Chase describes as a swirl ofchaotic, primeval theorizing, patterns began to form, and themes resonated,particularly the notions that nature is sacred and everything within the universeis interconnected.l2

Sacred Wilderness. Though Deep Ecology may be a bit jumbled, it has in-fluenced a number of environmental activists. In one interview Foreman attack-ed the anthropocentric or human-centered philosophy of the Westernworld, explaining that wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake, and forthe sake of the diversityof life forms it shelters; we shouldnt have to justifj theexistence of a wilderness area by saying, Well, it protegs the watershed, andits a nice place to backpack and hunt, and its pretty.

In his view not only is the wilderness sacred, but ecotage is a necessary ele-ment of Deep Ecology. Monkeywrenching is a form of worship toward theearth. Its really a very spiritual thing to go out and d0.14ter to the editor inEarth First! ewsletter.The mindset of the most extreme of these ecoterrorists is evident from a let-

The only way to stop all the destruction of our home isto decrease the birth rate or increase the death rate ofpeople.... t does no good to kill a few selected folks.That is a retail operation. Whatwe need is a wholesaleoperation...The simple expedient: biological warfare!Think about it. It fits. It is species specific. Bacteriaare, and viruses tend to be, deadlyto only one species.Only a very few of human pathogens are shared byother partners onour planet. Biologicalwarfarewillhave no impact on ther creatures, big or small, f wedesign it carefully.8

11 Quoted in Peter Borrelli, The Ecophilomphers,The Amicus Jopcmal, Spring 1988,p. 33.l2 Alston Chase,PlayingGod n Yellowstone: The Desbuchon ofAmericas First National Park (Boston:AtlanticMonthly Press, 1986),p. 347. For a response toChase, see Doug Foreman,Doug Peacock, and George Sessions,Whos Playing God in Yellowstone?A Tripartite Review ofthe Alston Chase/Yellowstone National ParkControversy,EarthFhtf,December 21,1986,pp. l8-21.13 Plowboy Interview,op. cit., p. 18.14 Quoted inJi m Robbins, Hurling Sand into SocietysGears,Hi& CountryNews, December 21,1987,p. 14.15 Anonymous, ntitled letter, E& Fhtf, ovember 1,19&1,p. 3.

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ECOTERRORISM A PRESENT DANGER?Foreman claims that the fact is, theres almady an awful lot ofmonkeywrenching going on...The Forest Service tries to keep it quiet, industrytries to keep it quiet, and I think there has even been an effort in the media to

downplay the extent and effectiveness of monkeywrenching in America todaysince reporting such.actiyities


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damage from caltrops, or road spikes, which flatten tires. Ecoterrorists alsohave dropped caltrops on trails in national forests in an attempt to halt off-roadvehicles and along the course of the Sarstow to LasVegas motorcycle race. Onoccasion saboteurs have cut the brake lines of logging crew buses anddynamited equipment. Such incidents have occurred in Arizona, California,Montana, and Oregon.. -Death ThreatsForXanchers.It is notjust timberlamtthat ecoteurs attemptto protect. Constructionfirmsdeveloping urban shopping centers and build-ing roads in Colorado, Utah, and Washingtonhave lost equipment to sabotage.The FBI reports that ranchers in Arizona, California, and Nevada increasinglyhave become targets of ecoterrorism. Saboteurs have castrated cattle, vandal-ized farm equipment, freed farm animals, and made death threats; last year theDickson Livestock Auction Yard in Dickson, Tennessee,was torched. Membersof both the Animal Liberation Front and Earth First! are thought to be in-volved. Lynn Jacobs of the latter group says some of its adherents may be in-volved, though she does not h o w of any specific attacks; Idon advocate thatanyone break the law unless they feel its the right thing to do.

Ecoteurs routinely pull up survey stakes, slowing road construction and otheroperations, thus making them more expensive. Ecoteurs also cut downbillboards. In 1986protestors uprooted potato plants to forestalla University ofCalifornia biogenetic project. Two years later the telescope at an Arizona obser-vatory was vandalized. Seismic equipment has been damaged at a number ofsites.A helicopter used by an Oregon .firm to apply herbicide on a commercial treeplantation was firebombed. Ecoteurs destroyed a utility company bridge, isolat-ing a Montana wilderness and recreation area from motor vehicles.Power generating facilities are a favorite ecoterrorist target. In 1979 and 1980Colorado power line supports were cut down. The following year a Utah trans-mission line was felled. In 1986 saboteurs knocked out three electrical transmis-sion lines in Arizona.The followingtwoyears ski ift pylons at the FairfieldSnowbowlinFlagstaff were cut,allegedly by the same people arrested alongwith Foreman last year.

Personal InjuryWhile most of the actions of ecoteurs to date mainly have destroyed property,injury of innocent people iS now becoming part of the ecoterrorist record. Spik-

ing trees with metal or ceramic spikes, the latter of which are not detected bymetal detectors, is common n the western US. Incidents have also occurred inCanada and Australia. In May 1987, a young Californiasawmilloperator was

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17 RangeWars of Past are Passe;Now tsEc~logicalerrorism,TheWashingtonTies,December18,1989.p.A7.

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severely injured when a spike shattered a band saw.A ocal Earth First! officialblamed the sawmill for jeopardizing its workers lives. Earth First! leaderForeman said workers fearinginjurycould quit and that to him, the old-growth forest inNorth Idaho is a hell of a lot more important than Joe Six-pack.lS Loggers in California and Oregon since have been injured.Stepped-UpEfforts. orthwest Forestry Association spokesman Mike Sul--livan:of Portland,-Oregon,-says hatthroughout the Northwest. After the injury of the Californiamillworker, theForest Service said it planned to step up efforts to prevent spiking, but arguedthat the practice was not a great epidemic. Though spiking has increasedduring the mid-l980s, explains Forest Service spokesman Jay Humphries,there is s t i l l less than 100 incidentsa year. Most of the illegal activity andthreats to Forest Service land are related to marijuana growing, not environ-mental ecotage.,19Many loggers remained unconvinced. In 1988, oneWashington umbermill

lost $20,000worth of blades from cutting spiked trees.In another incident involving personal injury, demonstrators, some armedwith knives and clubs, attacked Forest Service personnel involved in herbicidespraying in the Siskiyou National Forest.

inddefie%ave been reported

REXCTIONS TO ECOTERRORISMIncreased enforcement has been the traditional response to ecoterrorism.Companies are more vigilant in protecting their equipment; the Forest Servicetries to watch more closely for saboteurs of trees, roads, and equipment. In1988, Congress passed a bill offered by Senator James McClure, the IdahoRepublican, making tree spiking a federal offense. Last year, RepresentativeCharles (Chip) Pashayan, the California Republican, introduced legislation tostiffen penalties and create a reward program for informers against tree spikers.Last year, too, theWashingtonContract Loggers Association created a FieldIntelligence Report to track the activities of ecoteurs and has established areward program for information leading to the apprehension of such criminals.Similarly, the Mountain States Legal Foundation, based in Denver, Colorado,established an ecotage hotline last year. In the first two months of hotline opera-tion, Foundation PresidentWilliam Perry Pendley received reports of ecotagefromCalifornia, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washingtona Moun-

tain Statesalso established a clearinghouse to file civil damage actions againstsaboteurs and to assist the government in prosecuting violators.

. 18 Quoted inDeanMiller, McClureWants Federal LawAgahst TreeSpiking,S Mew,August 1,1987,19 Robbins, op. cit., p. 16.20 DeborahFrazier, EcotageHotlineWins P r w ockyMountain News,August 21,1989, p. 6.p. 1.

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THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS RESPONSEAdequate penalties are a necessary part of any effort to combat ecoterrorism.Yet western forestland and deserts are too sparsely populated to be patrolledand defended effectively against the determined ecoterrorists.The best defense

against ecotage is for mainstream environmentalist community and politicalleaders and for .businessmen .to;speak.out requently-on-the ssue.Aiding Extremists.The message should be twofold: 1)violence isnot jus-tified as a response to perceived to the environment,wrongs and 2) the protec-tion of human life remains societys paramount responsibility.Particularly important is the role of the major environmental groups.Thoughnone of them endorse ecotage, few have shown much enthusiasm for publiclycriticizing the practice. Some even aid violent ecoteurs. David Brower, past ex-ecutive director of the Sierra Club and current chairman of Friends of theEarth, ivesEarth First! office space and has defended the organizations ac-

tivities. I think the environmental movement has room for lots of differentviews broadcasting on many channels, said Brower. Im certainly not going tobe against civi ldisobedience.21Brower has said that Earth First! makes Friends of theEarth lookreasonable. Whatwe need now is an outfit to makeEarth First! lookreasonable. When challenged to disavow ecoterrorists in 1983, the SierraClubs then-executive director and now chairman Michael McCloskeyresponded that weno more have an obligationto run around denouncing ex-tremistsusingthe environmental movement than Republicans and Democratshave an obligation to go around spending most of their time condemning theviews of left or right wing extremists.22Rejecting Violence. McCloskey ignores the fact the Republicans andDemocrats have done just that.They overwhelmingly reject the use of violenceto achieve their goals. They never have supported the use of tactics that maymaim and even kill. And when such cases occur, these political movementshave acted to disassociate themselveswith the culprits. In the 1950s theAmerican labor movement purged itself of most communist members and in-fluence. In 1989,George Bush and Republican PartyChairmanLee Atwaterdenounced the election of formerKu Klux Klan leader David Duke as aRepublican to the Louisiana State Legislature and expelledhim from theM-

The political organizations closest to the terrorist groups ideological viewsshould separate themselves from its activities and to help mold a broad socialconsensusagainst its activities. The Sierra Club and other organizations, be-

tionalparty.

21 Quote inKaufhann,op. cit., p. 117.22 Quoted inArnold,op.cir., p. 35.

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cause they are committed to many of the goals of Earth First!, have a speci.alduty to discourage violence committed in the name of the environment.PEACEFUL CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT POLICY

The renewed interest in the environment generated by the twentieth anniver-sary of..Earth Day..isindeed welcome.-Itdfen-an opportunity to examhe howbest to balance the need for economic development and individual libertyvciithlegitimate concernsabout destruction of the earths ecosystem and aboutwilderness preservation.In many instances, the federal government makes no attempt to find theeconomically efficient and environmentally soundmix of different activities andactually promotes environmental damage for no economically defensiblereason. For instance, fees for federal rangeland are usually between one-fifthand one-tenth of market rates, and thus encourage overgrazing of lands bestused in other ways. The federal government even has cleared trees to createmore grazing land, a highly destructive and costly process that would not occurwithout federal subsidies.Wasteful Investment. Even more wasteful is the Department of Agriculturesmanagement of the nations forestland.An estimated $100million is spent an-nually to promote logging in forests that otherwise would not be economical toharvest. In fact, federal road construction not only encourages logging opera-tions on public lands, it also opens up private forests that would not be economi-cally worthwhile were it not for the government roads. Logging in Alaska hasproved to be particularly wgteful, returning just $32million on an investmentof $386million since 1982.Similarly, federal water projects such as irrigation systems,dams, and canalsoften have been created to satis& special interest groups, not to meet genuinepublic needs. North Dakotas$1.2 billionGarrisonDiversion project wasdesigned to serve less than one percent of the states agricultural land whiledestroying in excess of 70,OOO acres of wetlands.No PublicGood.Environmental destruction underwritten by the federalgovernment certainly should be the target of reformers. But this does not juswextremist tactics, civil disobedience, and violence. Nor does this ustify ignoringthe balance that must be struck between ecologicalconcerns and economicdevelopment. It is neither humane nor does it serve the public good to shut

businesses needlessly, to restrict the supplyof housing by prohibiting construc-tion of new homes, or to drive up the costs of energy by reducing electricalgenerating capacity. There areways to protect the environment without paying23 As a result, the US.Houseof Representativesvoted, 356 o60, n July 1989 o end federally mandated timbersales. Said Representathe Steve Bartlett, theTexasRepubIiuucThetimberprogram H a classiccaseof corporatewelfare. It isnot capitalism. It isa taxpayer-subsidized obs program.John Lamaster, HouseVotes to Limithgging in Vast AlaskanTract,meWmhingtonPost, July 14,1989, p.A6.

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those prices. Some of these ways include privatization and ending federal ofdevelopment subsidies. Environmental policies must be designed aroundnatural markets forces which would deliver more ecological amenities at lowercost.CONCLUSION - - .-IAmericans want to preserve a clean world -to conserve their environment.Americans too want an economy that offers them increasing economic oppor-tunities. How to balance these two goals all too often splitsWashingtonbe-tween myopic conservationists and equally myopic developers. Out of this splitcomes the ecoterrorists, who believe that anything short of complete victory forthe environment is a moral aswell as a practical disaster.

Their extremist philosophy is leading to a guerrilla movement that is destroy-ing property and injuring the innocent and one daywillkill innocent workers orpark employees.Special Responsibility. Toprevent this,policy makers and particularly estab-lishment environmental groups, must respond to the ecoterrorists by rebuildingthe moral consensus against the use of violence. The environmental movementhas a special responsibility. It must no longer tolerate, let alone encourage, theecoteurs. In particular, environmental groups should publicize the fact that theecoteurs violence sabotages legitimate environmental groups. Thesemainstream groups thus should speak out forcefully to encourage their mem-bers to distance themselves from violent and destructive activities.If Deep Ecology is not challenged at the philosophical level, the number ofenvironmentalists committed to ecotage is likely to grow. And asmore peopleput the rights of nature before those of humans, the more likely it is that in-nocent people are going to be killed.

Prepared for The Heritage FoundationbyDoug BandowSeniorFellow, Cat0 Institute,Washington,D.C.

9471 ecoterrorism and dangers of env policy 1990

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