Earth First!

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The symbol of Earth First!: a Monkey wrench and stone hammer

Earth First! is a radical environmentalist organization, pioneered in the early 1980s by Arizona desert activists Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and others.

The name of the organization traditionally includes the exclamation point (!) but for grammatical reasons, the exclamation will only be used in the article below when giving the name of publications of the group.

Contents

1 The early years
2 Earth First since 1990
3 Earth First in the UK
4 Books about Earth First

4.1 Books about the early Earth First
4.2 Books about the post-1990 Earth First
4.3 Books critical of Earth First

5 See also
6 External links

6.1 Earth First today
6.2 Other links relevant to Earth First

The early years

During the group's early years (1980-1986), Earth First mixed innovative publicity, such as rolling a plastic "crack" down Glen Canyon Dam, with far-reaching wilderness proposals that went far beyond what the mainstream environmental groups were willing to advocate, and with conservation biology research from a biocentric perspective. The group's proposals were published in a periodical, Earth First! The Radical Environmental Journal, informally known as the Earth First! Journal. Edward Abbey's writings were a major inspiration. Abbey himself was revered by the early movement, and often spoke at early gatherings. An annual gathering of the group was known as the Round River Rendezvous, from a phrase taken from Aldo Leopold's book, A Sand County Almanac.

In the spring of 1985, a nationwide call to action in the Earth First! Journal brought Earth First members from around the United States to Willamette National Forest to defend the forests of the Santiam and nearby watersheds from logging company Willamette Industries. Finding logging road blockades that were being carried out by Corvallis, Oregon-based Cathedral Forest Action Group offering too short term a protection, Marylander Ron Huber and Washingtonian Mike Jakubal [devised tree sitting] as a more effective civil disobedience alternative.

On May 23, 1985 Mike Jakubal made the [first Earth First tree sit]. When U.S. Forest Service law enforcement official Steve Slagowski arrived, Mike Roselle, Ron Huber and others were arrested sitting at the base of the tree in support. This first tree sit lasted less than a day -- Jakubal came down in the evening to look over the remains of the forest that had been cut down around him that day, and was arrested by a hidden Forest Service officer -- but the tree-sitting concept was deemed sound. Huber and Jakubal, in the company of Mike Roselle, brought the concept to the [June 14th Washington EF Rendezvous]; on June 23, a convoy of activists from there and elsewhere arrived at Willamette National Forest, and [set up tree platforms] in a location threatened with imminent destruction, the ["Squaw/Three timbersale"]. While at one point up to a dozen trees were occupied, a [July 10 sneak attack] took down all the trees with platforms but Ron Huber's. The other sitters had gone for an overnight meeting elsewhere. Huber remained in his tree, dubbed Yggdrasil, until July 20, when two Linn County sheriff's deputies, [lifted to him in a crane box] wrestled him from the tree. (Action diaries, legal papers, tickets, digitized audio recordings, newsclips and other sources about Earth First's 1985 tree-sitting actions in Oregon have been [archived by Ron Huber]

Later, from about 1987 on, Earth First became primarily associated with direct action to prevent logging, dam building, and other forms of development which may cause destruction of wildlife habitats or the despoilation of wild places. This change in direction attracted many new members to Earth First, some of whom came from a leftist or anarchist political background or involvement in the counterculture. Dave Foreman has related that this led to the introduction of such activities as a "puke-in" at a shopping mall, a flag burning, heckling of Edward Abbey at a 1987 Earth First rendezvous, and back-and-forth debates in the Earth First! Journal on such topics as anarchism, with which Foreman and others did not wish to be associated. Most of the group's "old guard," including Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, Christopher Manes, George Wuerthner, and Earth First! Journal editor John Davis (but not Mike Roselle) became increasingly uncomfortable with this new direction, and eventually severed their ties to Earth First in 1990. Many of them went on to launch a new magazine, Wild Earth, and a new environmental group, The Wildlands Project. Roselle, on the other hand, along with activists such as Judi Bari, welcomed the new direct-action and leftist direction of Earth First.

Starting in the mid-1980s, Earth First began an increasing promotion of and identification with "Deep Ecology," a philosophy put forward by Arne Næss, Bill Devall, and George Sessions, which holds that all forms of life on Earth have equal value in and of themselves, without regard for their utility to human beings. Earth First followers use this philosophy to justify an ecocentric view of the world in which intrinsic values for organisms and ecosystems outweigh their resource values. The motto of Earth First is "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!"

Earth First since 1990

Since the departure of the old guard in 1990, action within the Earth First movement has become increasingly informed by anarchist political philosophy, with a rotation of the primary media organ among publishers in differing bioregions, an aversion to organized leadership or administrative structure, and a new trend of identifying Earth First as a movement rather than an organization. Earth First resembles a decentralized, locally informed activism based on communitarian ethics.

In the field, individual citizens and small groups form the nuclei for grassroots political actions, which may take the form of legal actions--i.e. protests, timber sale appeals, and educational campaigns--or civil disobedience--tree sitting, road blockades, and sabotage - called "ecotage" by some advocates when it is done as a form of ecodefense. Often, disruptive direct action is used primarily as a stalling tactic, to prevent environmental destruction while lawsuits (which take more time) can secure long-term victories.

A very popular combination of tactics is road blockades, activists locking themselves to heavy equipment to immobilize it, tree-sitting to prevent logging, and sometimes sabotage of machinery.

Earth First was at first known for providing information in the Earth First! Journal on the practice of tree-spiking, which can be injurious, and monkeywrenching (or ecotage). In 1990, however, Judi Bari led Earth First in the Northern California and Southern Oregon region to renounce these practices, calling them counterproductive to an effort to form a coalition with workers and small logging businesses to defeat large-scale corporate logging in Northern California.

In 1990, a bomb was placed in Judi Bari's car, crippling her. Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspected that she was responsible for the bomb but were unable to find any evidence tying her to the explosion. Bari died in 1997, but her federal lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland, California police resulted in a 2002 jury verdict awarding her estate and Darryl Cherney a total of $4.4 million. Eighty percent of the damages were awarded for violation of the two Earth First leaders' First Amendment rights to organize politically in defense of the environment. This verdict has only fueled speculation about what really happened.

Some theories have focused on Mike Sweeney, Bari's estranged ex-husband, who is alleged to have a history of domestic violence and political bombings dating back to the 60's. This theory has been advanced by Kate Coleman, author of The Secret Wars of Judi Bari, as well as Bruce Anderson, editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. This theory (and many others) advanced by Coleman and Anderson are dismissed by [Friends of Judi Bari] as part of a smear campaign. Bari's supporters, on the other hand, believe there is evidence the FBI helped plan the bombing [link], although there has never been a government investigation into this claim. Special Agent Richard W. Held, who supervised the Bari case for the FBI, was dismissed from the lawsuit early on in 1997 [link]. Held was also the director of COINTELPRO operations in Los Angeles directed at the Black Panther Party during the 1970's and was involved with the COINTELPRO operations directed at Geronimo Pratt and Leonard Peltier.

Earth First has never advocated the use of bombs or explosives in any way, due to the risk of harming living things.

Some critics of the movement still call Earth First activity eco-terrorism, though Earth First proponents say that the term more accurately describes the people who destroy the environment. In response to being labeled terrorists, some have adopted the neologism terrist instead.

Earth First was parodied in a December 2003 episode of The Simpsons, titled "Lisa the Tree-Hugger," and mentioned in the second Jurassic Park movie.

Earth First in the UK

An arrest at the Liverpool docks, with protestors occupying cranes in the background

The Earth First movement in the United Kingdom started in the 1990, when a group in Hastings Sussex organising an action at Dungeness nuclear power station in Kent. It rapidly grew into a wider Environmental direct action involving many groups.

Numerous other groups formed in the next couple of years, with many of them coming from university student green activist. The first big Earth First actions happened in 1992 and focused around the importation of tropical hardwoods. The first major action happened in London at Tilbury Docks. The second major action, the Merseyside Dock Action, attracted between 200-600 people who occupied Liverpool docks for two days. This action coincided with the Earth First roadshow, in which a group of UK & US Earth Firsters toured the country. Other early campaign also focused on timber-yards, most notably Timbmet yard in Oxford.[link]

At the first national gathering in Sussex the debate focused on the use of criminal damage as a protest technique. Earth First did not condone or condemn criminal damage, instead it focused more on non-violent direct action techniques. Some people at the gathering coined the term Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which became a separate movement which spread back to the US. Actions involving criminal damage did happen often under cover of night and were typically done under ELF banner and attributed to elves and pixies, giving a distinctly British feel to the movement.

Major growth in the direct action movement stated when the focus shifted to roads and a protest camp at Twyford Down was started. Whilst Earth First groups still played a major part many other groups such of the Dongas tribe soon formed. Along with SchNEWS the Earth First [Action Update], [Do or Die] and , [Earth First gathering] were key means of communication between the groups. The movement grew to many other road protest camps including Newbury bypass, the A30, the M11 link road protest in London, where whole streets were "squatted." Later the focus winded to other campaigns including notably Reclaim the Streets, [anti-GMO campaigns], [Rising Tide], [Peat Alert], [Plane Stupid]... The growth of this wider movement is more extensively covered in environmental direct action in the United Kingdom.

The U.K. Earth First groups differed considerably from the U.S. groups as reported in a ten year retrospective of the Earth First by two of the founder Jake Bowers and Jason Torrance:

We knew EF US's original hardline "rednecks for wilderness" attitude wouldn't appeal here, so we set out to build a group that combined radical action and social justice to protect Britain's few remaining natural places.[link]

This strategy and the political situation at the time is perhaps reflected by how quickly the movement grew.

Earth First groups are still active today, there is a yearly [Earth First gathering] and [Earth First action reports] document continued actions.

Books about Earth First

Books about the early Earth First

Davis, John, ed. The Earth First! Reader: Ten Years of Radical Environmentalism (1991) (ISBN 0879053879)
Foreman, Dave. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior (1991) (ISBN 051788058X)
Foreman, Dave. Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (1985) (ISBN 0963775103)
Manes, Christopher. Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization (1990) (ISBN 0316545325)
Scarce, Rik. Eco-Warriors (1990) (ISBN 096226833X)
Zakin, Susan. Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement (1993) (ISBN 0816521859)

Books about the post-1990 Earth First

Bari, Judi. Timber Wars (1994) (ISBN 1567510264)
Lee, Martha. Earth First!: Environmental Apocalypse (1995) (ISBN 0815603657)
Wall, Derek Earth First and the Anti-Roads Movement (1999) (ISBN 0415190649)

Books critical of Earth First

Arnold, Ron. Ecoterror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature (1997) (ISBN 0939571188)
Bradford, George. How Deep is Deep Ecology? (1989) (ISBN 0878100350)
Clausen, Barry. Walking on the Edge: How I Infiltrated Earth First! (1994) (ISBN 0936783125)
Coleman, Kate. The Secret Wars of Judi Bari (2005) (ISBN 1893554740)

External links

Earth First today

[Earth First! Journal]
[Earth First!] (unofficial international site)
[JudiBari.org]
[Earth First! UK Action Reports]
[Earth First! Summer Gathering (UK)]
[Do or Die]
[SchNEWS archive] back issues detailing UK action from 1994 onwards.
[Weed's environment & road protest camps 1997 onwards]