Page 143 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Ecoterrorism———117

GROWING MORE RADICAL tree spike, calling even more federal attention to
environmentalists, though it is not confirmed that
Earth First!, one of the most prominent radical envi-
Earth First! activists placed the spike.)
ronmental groups, also used Abbey’s novel as a guide-
Authorities spent the next 18 months and $2 million
book for action. Founded in 1980, the Arizona-based
investigating EMETIC, focusing specifically on Earth
group became known for its antilogging campaigns to
First! cofounder Foreman, who headed EMETIC. By
save old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. By
1989, EMETIC was planning to sabotage nuclear
reading Earth First! cofounder Dave Foreman’s book
plants in Arizona, Colorado, and California—by far
Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, indi-
the most dangerous act planned by any environmen-
vidual environmentalists have learned the tools of the
tal group. On May 29, 1989, core EMETIC members
trade: spiking trees, disabling bulldozers and other
were arrested trying to down a power line leading to
heavy equipment, toppling billboards and power line
the Central Arizona Project water pumping stations.
towers. Activists are instructed to pull up survey stakes
The nearly 1,000 hours of audiotape collected by an
to halt further development into wilderness areas and
FBI informant helped convict all involved.
to put themselves in trees to stop loggers.
In the 1990s, just as Foreman had distanced
Like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a radical
himself from more moderate environmentalists by
animal rights group that began in England in 1976,
working with EMETIC, other environmental activists
Earth First! was decentralized and nonhierarchical.
frustrated by Earth First!’s “tepid” direct action
With no membership list and no formal leaders, Earth
formed more dangerous offshoots. In 1992, militant
First!ers were left to conceive of and carry out their
members of Earth First! in England formed the Earth
own operations, held together only by a shared philos-
Liberation Front (ELF), fashioned after the Animal
ophy of “deep ecology,” the publication of the Earth
Liberation Front. By 1995, ecoterrorism had become
First! Journal, and a common goal of causing signifi-
the primary security priority of Scotland Yard’s
cant economic damage to environmentally destructive
Special Branch, as ELF “elves” sabotaged road build-
industries. Such a loose structure makes infiltration and
ing with Vietcong-style pongee stakes. Construction
tracking of any group difficult. As like-minded groups
equipment was routinely dismantled and set afire—
with the same organizational structure began to spring
the favorite form of “ecotage.”
up and turn more violent and destructive, authorities
ELF arrived in North America a few years later,
became alarmed and steadily more frustrated.
committing a handful of small actions in conjunction
The latter half of the 1980s saw a new level of envi-
with the North American ALF. In 1998, however,
ronmental radicalism, which brought environmental
ELF rose to the top of the FBI’s domestic terrorist list
terrorism to the forefront. In the mid-1970s, Canadian
with arson at Vail Resorts in Colorado; damages of
activist Paul Watson left Greenpeace to form the Sea
more than $12 million made it the largest ecoterrorist
Shepherd Conservation Society, which engaged in
act to date. ALF and ELF continue to cooperate and
greater levels of economic destruction in its efforts to
collaborate; both groups claimed responsibility for
end whale and seal hunts, driftnet fishing, and other
setting fires at the Bureau of Land Management wild
marine industry practices. In November 1986, Watson,
horse corrals in Oregon in November 1997, and, just
along with ALF activist Rodney Coronado, sabotaged
over six months later, setting another fire at the U.S.
a whaling station in Reykjavik, Iceland, and sank two
Department of Animal Damage Control Building in
of that country’s four whaling ships. The $2.7 million
Olympia, Washington. Then-FBI director Louis
in damages hobbled Iceland’s whaling industry.
Freeh called ALF and ELF the two most active
A year later, in the United States, while more mod-
domestic terrorist organizations.
erate environmentalists engaged in traditional civil
disobedience, a small offshoot of Earth First! calling EXPANDING REACH AND CONCERNS
itself the Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International
Conspiracy (EMETIC) sabotaged a ski lift at a resort Radical environmental groups, including Earth
that had encroached on Native America sacred First!, were extremely active in Canada during the
grounds in Arizona. This act brought ecoterrorism to 1990s, especially in the West. In 1995, activists
the attention of the FBI. (That year—1987—was also destroyed a logging bridge at the cost of more than
the year the first logger was seriously injured by a $2 million, and, in 1997, set off an explosion at a