ECOLOGICAL RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS
Chapter 1: Earth First! and Global Narratives of Popular Ecological Resistance
Bron Taylor
We tell and hear stories. They awaken feelings in us. Thinking in response, we ponder the meaning of narratives. Is there a fable here, a moral lesson, a call to action? Personal stories can fuse with the broader narratives of communities and cultures--often unconsciously and uncritically--especially in social contexts characterized by little cultural diversity. But more often, integrating personal and cultural narratives is a difficult personal process. There are so many stories. Which ones move us? Which make sense?1
The stakes are high in battles over narratives. These battles, and the stories themselves, shape our individual and collective identities, and thus our character. They tell us how we should live and how we should relate to others. Questions such as--Who am I?, How and with whom do I fit in?, Where is my community?, What is the good life?--are often if not usually resolved in narrative.
Since my undergraduate days, I have been moved often by what Roger Betsworth calls "outsider" stories. First, by "Liberation theology" with its story of Christians acting to promote earthly peace and justice. This spin on Christianity was striking in its deviance from the dominant, otherworldly Christian stories with which I was well acquainted; it also repudiated the close association between the Church and political power that has dominated the last millennia and a half. Liberation narratives, which explain inequality as the consequence of oppression also contradicted central U.S. narratives, including the "Gospel of Success" and the Enlightenment story of progress--both of which assume that hard work yields individual success and material prosperity--and that these consequences constitute the good society (Betsworth 1990).
Further exploration uncovered more stories and introduced additional, incompatible claims into the contestation. Complicating matters further, since factually irreconcilable stories still move people emotionally (sometimes even the same individuals!), it became obvious that affect and intuition were not sufficient grounds for choosing between competing narratives. It seemed, therefore, that competing claims would have to be arbitrated rationally--that only careful reasoning could help sort-out which stories made sense. Nevertheless, moral sentiments are connected to emotions and intuitions, to our capacity for caring. Consequently, we need to find an approach that can reconcile narratives presented to us with our own personal experiences, as well as an approach that recognizes the connections between the reflective and affective dimensions of moral experience.2
My own experience has been that we can discover new insights by seriously considering the contending claims of competing narratives. For example, by researching liberationist claims I gradually became convinced that (1) multilateral "Aid" often exacerbates the plight of the poor by promoting cash-crop "monocultures" that, in turn, lead to food exports to affluent consumers while depriving subsistence foods to local populations; (2) huge "development" schemes such as hydro-electric dams "aid" displace rural peoples and destroy vast areas capable of sustaining them (Goldsmith 1983; McDonald 1993); and (3) such agricultural practices and development projects are intimately related to the world's declining biological diversity (Hayter 1985; Rich 1994). I was initially skeptical of such claims, since they contradicted (or at least qualified) a narrative with which I was much more familiar, that of the United States generously assisting less affluent nations.
As valuable as specific insights might be, however, even more significant is what I have learned about the value of outsider voices per se. Even when mistaken, they can raise important questions and focus attention on issues demanding thoughtful scrutiny. Sometimes they powerfully expose selfish interests and self-deceptions camouflaged in the dominant narratives of the politically powerful (Betsworth 1990). Outsider voices can carry valuable knowledge that guardians of the world's dominant narratives prefer would remain little-known. For example relevant to this volume's themes, protests by Native Americans over how Euro-Americans came and destroyed indigenous cultures and ecosystems can counter tendencies within the Euro-American culture toward unmerited feelings of superiority, while simultaneously demand respect for Native peoples and Mother Earth. In such ways, outsider voices can kindle moral imagination, obliging us to consider moral claims completely outside our own frames-of-reference.
By listening to and engaging strange voices and deviant stories in a conversation, and by making moral decisions in response, we can deepen understanding and build moral character. The initial step in such engagement is often the most difficult: the painful act of listening.
This book contains many stories of ecological resistance, and reflections about them. The seeds for this volume were planted in 1978 when I first read Edward Abbey's The Monkeywrench Gang, a novel about a band of fed-up environmentalists who resorted to sabotage in an effort to halt and reverse the destruction of a desert they loved. Abbey was an anarchist whose stories pitted freedom loving individuals against the dehumanizing and earth-destroying forces of an authoritarian, bureaucratic, and obsessively pro-development society. I first read it as fiction. But Abbey was romanticizing the exploits of an already emerging ecological guerilla force that, in 1980, took form as the ecological resistance movement known as Earth First!.3 Recognizing Earth First! as an outsider voice, in 1989 I decided to conduct field and documentary research, first to understand the movement as a historical and social phenomena, and second to consider its moral, ecological and political claims.
In this chapter, I first provide an interpretation of the key moral, ecological, and political claims articulated by participants in the Earth First! movement. I then describe perceptions shared by many Earth First!ers about grassroots movements around the world which they consider to be kindred movements of ecological resistance. In this way, I introduce Earth First!'s own narrative as well as other narratives of ecological resistance originating in diverse contexts around the world. My purpose in describing such narratives is not to endorse or promote them. Rather, toward the end of this chapter, I use the claims and perceptions embedded in these narratives to pose problems for us to consider throughout this volume. By studying the Earth First! movement and agonizing over its claims, I have deepened my own understanding of the moral, ecological, and political dimensions of contemporary environmental controversies. Even if we end up disagreeing with them, examining "outsider" claims and narratives can enhance our own understandings.
Earth First!: a new story of ecological resistance4
Earth First! announced itself in the early 1980s with a series of humorous protests. For example, activists illegally unfurled a plastic "crack" down the face of Glen Canyon Dam, symbolically "liberating" the Colorado river. But soon the actions turned more serious as activists struggled to prevent destructive enterprises in wilderness areas. They blockaded logging roads, sometimes with activists bicycle-locked to machinery or buried up to their necks5 or perched precariously high atop wooden "tripods." Activists conducted multi-day "tree-sits" to prevent felling. Various forms of "night work," "ecotage," or "monkeywrenching"--movement parlance for sabotage intended to thwart environmental destruction--increasingly accompanied the civil disobedience campaigns.
Activists viewed ecotage as economic warfare against those who would destroy wilderness areas. By vandalizing equipment, pulling up survey stakes, driving metal, ceramic or quartz spikes into trees, and so on, practitioners hoped to halt the destruction by making it unprofitable (Foreman and Haywood 1987). Meanwhile, they took their message across North America: through guerilla theater, where activists dressed in animal costumes conducting mock trials of human corporate criminals; through poetry and song at demonstrations, in the courts, and in jails; through "road shows" (touring public presentations) often involving spellbinding storytelling woven into science-based arguments about the ecological importance of wilderness; and through the creative invention of ritual processes designed to evoke and deepen what they considered proper human perceptions of the sacrality of the natural world (Taylor 1993a). Less well known is their strategy of "paper monkeywrenching"--the threat or actual filing of administrative appeals and lawsuits by individuals and small groups of activists. Scattered around country, often self-taught, but increasingly sophisticated both legally and scientifically, such activists have been among the most effective North American campaigners for biological diversity.6
In myriad ways these activists lived out their narratives of ecological rebellion, sometimes weaving their resistance into a larger evolutionary story: for example, in words originally expressed by the Australian Earth First!er John Seed, "I am the rainforest, recently emerged into consciousness, defending myself."7 This idea became a movement slogan when popularized by Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman. It suggested that ecological resistance is an evolutionary expression of self-defense--a necessary adaptation for re-harmonizing the human and non-human worlds.
Other movement stories have assumed nearly mythic significance, especially Aldo Leopold's wilderness epiphany about the intrinsic value of the non-human world, gained as he witnessed the "green fire" die in the eyes of a wolf he had shot.8 This story is strikingly similar to the description by Paul Watson9 of the day his gaze met that of a harpooned whale he was trying to save. Looking into that whale's eye revealed, Watson recounts, an "intelligence...that spoke wordlessly of compassion..., that communicated [that he knew] what we had tried to do." From this experience, Watson received his commission: "On that day I knew emotionally and spiritually that my allegiance lay with the whales...over the interests of the humans who would kill them" (Watson 1993b).10 Finally, in addition to these classic tales, there is a growing body of narratives about heroic environmental activists. Those engaged in ecological resistance, especially those injured or martyred, are often honored in poetry and song.11
Deep ecology and the moral claim of Earth First!
With such tactics and legitimating stories, activists of Earth First! movement have advanced moral, ecological and political claims which constitute the three essential pillars of Earth First!'s ethics. Their moral claim is that non-human life is valuable, even apart from its usefulness to human beings. Every species has "intrinsic worth," and each should be allowed to fulfill its "evolutionary destiny." To this, many Earth First!ers add, humans are no more valuable than other species. This is a proposition posed dramatically, if implicitly, by those acts of ecotage risking human injury or death.12 This simple form of the moral argument has become known as Deep Ecology, a term coined in 1973 by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, but quickly adopted by Earth First!ers in the early 1980s. The terms "biocentrism" (for life-centered), and increasingly, "ecocentrism" (for ecosystem-centered), expressed the conviction that all ecosystems should be allowed to flourish, that humans should not impede such flourishing, and when possible they should restore the natural preconditions for such flourishing.13 This biocentrism is contrasted with anthropocentrism, that is, a human-centered approach to the environment.
Accepting arguments like those advanced by Toynbee (1972) and White (1967), most Earth First!ers blame the major religious monotheisms of the West for fueling the anthropocentrism they generally believe is the most important cause of the human destruction of nature. In contrast, what animates most Earth First!ers are their own spiritual experiences in nature which convince them of the interrelatedness and sacrality of all life.14 Such experiences are the foundation of most deep ecological arguments about the intrinsic value of species and ecosystems. However, some activists believe it is counterproductive to their cause to discuss such underpinnings (Taylor 1995a).
A scientific argument for deep ecological urgency.
Based on their reading of the ecological sciences, Earth First!ers add the ecological claim that we are in the midst of an unprecedented, anthropogenic extinction crisis, and consequently, many ecosystems are presently collapsing. This is the second pillar of Earth First's ethics, and provides an essential underpinning and rationale for militancy. Without this claim there is no basis for urgency--no reason for people with deep ecological moral sentiments to risk their freedom or disrupt their private lives.15 If accurate, such ecological analysis reveals a wide gap between fact and value, between what is and what ought to be: ecosystems that ought to be flourishing are being destroyed by human action. This introduces the realm of politics, the necessary arena for strategy over how to bridge gaps between what "is" the relationship between humans and nature and what such relations "ought" to be.16
Political analysis and the call to resistance
Deep ecological moral perceptions combined with ecological urgency do not by themselves enjoin specific political strategies or tactics. The argument for such tactics requires political analysis. The heart of Earth First!'s political claim is either: democracy in the U.S. is a sham, thoroughly thwarted by corporate economic power, or, even if not a complete sham, the democratic political system is so distorted by corporate power and regressive human attitudes that it cannot respond quickly enough to avert the escalating extinction catastrophe. Moreover, Earth First!ers would argue that, in light of nature's intrinsic value, governing processes that disregard the interests of non-humans are illegitimate.
Many Earth First!ers add to such critique the ecofeminist contention that androcentrism and patriarchy play important roles in ecological destruction. Many agree that human hierarchy is also a key factor, drawing on Social Ecology or other anarchistic critiques. Few Earth First!ers would suggest, however, that either androcentrism or hierarchy fully explain environmental degradation. Nevertheless, virtually all of today's Earth First!ers believe patriarchy, hierarchy and anthropocentrism reflect related forms of domination that destroy the natural world. Most Earth First!ers agree that all such domination must be overcome if humans are to reharmonize their lifeways within nature.17
Such political analysis provides the third essential pillar of Earth First!'s radicalism. Without it, in a formally democratic society, it is difficult to argue persuasively that illegal tactics are morally permissible. By asserting either that democratic procedures never existed, or that they have broken down, or that they camouflage domination, these activists argue that illegal tactics are morally justifiable.
These three claims lead to the assertion that the current situation--morally, ecologically, and politically--is so grave that tactics considered objectionable by most are instead necessary and even obligatory. Such analysis, in turn, provides for a continuum of tactics that roughly parallel these three claims. Some Earth First!ers prioritize efforts to change anthropocentric human attitudes by developing ritual processes that are believed to awaken nature-spirituality in urbanized humans. Others prioritize the use of scientific knowledge to argue for biological diversity in legal and policy making venues, sometimes through Earth First! spin-offs such as the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, or the Wildlands Project.18 Still others prioritize more aggressive political action, using a variety of provocative tactics to resist destructive enterprises, to publicize ecological injustices, and ideally, to precipitate the overturning of the intrinsically destructive industrial state.19
Differences about priorities and tactics sometimes contribute to tensions within the movement. Nevertheless, most Earth First!ers believe that the struggle for biodiversity must be fought on all three of these related fronts--promoting spiritual awakening, ecological education, and fundamental political change. Most respect the work of those whose priorities differ from their own.20 All agree, as well, that the re-harmonizing of life on earth, requires the international expansion (and renewal) of deep ecological perceptions and actions.
International ecological resistance and radical environmental solidarity
Earth First!'s very first symbolic act involved creating a memorial to the Apache indian chief Victorio, whose last-ditch, armed resistance to the European conquest symbolized to them the struggle to preserve ecologically harmonious lifeways in North America. From that moment on, Earth First!ers have celebrated ecological resistance movements wherever they could be found. Popular environmental movements are interpreted as kindred movements in different cultural garb, particularly when they appear to be motivated by nature-based spirituality,21 and Earth First!ers try to act in solidarity with such groups.
Among the most notable expressions of such solidarity are the U.S. based Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and the Australia-based Rainforest Information Center (RIC). The latter was founded in 1983 by John Seed, an Australian environmental activist introduced to Earth First! in the early 1980s by poet and counterculture visionary Gary Snyder.22 Seed liked what he saw in the Earth First! journals Snyder showed him. Soon he was in the U.S., participating in road shows that, in 1983 and 1984, established thirty rainforest action groups. This inspired Mike Roselle (an Earth First! co-founder) and Randall Hayes (another activist drawn to Earth First! in the early 1980s) to form RAN. Their initial goal was to coordinate the efforts of these groups. A 1985 strategy conference led, in turn, to the 1986 formation of the World Rainforest Movement, now based in Penang, Malaysia, which serves as an international umbrella network for rainforest activism.23
Most prominent among the struggles celebrated (and often supported) by Earth First!ers and their compatriot solidarity activists are those engaged in by (1) people believed to live sustainably (esp. forest dwellers and indigenous peoples), (2) those animated by nature spiritualities deemed similar to deep ecology, and (3) those who have become especially militant, employing civil disobedience, ecotage, and (rarely) violence against the agents of destruction.24 A brief survey of the movements that have drawn the greatest attention of Earth First! and RAN provides a rudimentary sense of the scope and nature of ecological resistance, and the solidarity activism, that is unfolding internationally.
Substantial movement attention has focused on the struggles of Amazonia's Seringueiros (peasant rubber tappers) and indigenous peoples, who formed their own "Forest People's Alliance" in 1987 to defend themselves and their forests against colonizers (see Hecht and Cockburn 1989:183, cf. 160-63, 180-183).25 In the eyes of movement activists, the struggle of these groups, who promote "extractive reserves" (setting aside the forest for small scale gathering, hunting, and rotating small-plot agriculture) is clearly radical. Extractive reserves presume "communal land ownership [and thereby attack] private property and hence capitalism" (Hecht and Cockburn 1989: 181-182). Moreover, their tactics are often militant, including non-violent, usually illegal land occupations, as well as sporadic and desperate armed attacks on miners, loggers, or other settlers.26
Dispatches from a 1989 alliance-building meeting of nearly a thousand delegates from twelve Amazonian tribes illustrate Earth First!'s fascination with such "kindred" resistance movements. This meeting was held in Brazil at Altimira, near the site of a series of dams planned for the Xingu and Iriri rivers, which are tributaries of the Amazon. During one session, a Kayapo woman threatened with a machete an attending Brazilian official. Reporting for the Earth First! journal, Sea Shepherd director Benjamin White quoted her as threatening, if "you build this dam, we will go to war, and you will die." White implied that the Indians were deep ecologists at heart, and likened their indigenous attitudes to Earth First's "no compromise" stance. "Unlike the typical language of moderation, conciliation and defeat of North American liberals" White wrote, "the Indians' statements reflected their years of armed struggle and unwillingness to compromise" (1989).27 Another article reported that nature spirituality fueled their resistance, quoting one Native leader, "It is necessary to respect our Mother Nature. We advise against destroying the forests. For a long time, the white man has offended our way of thinking and the spirit of our ancestors. Our territories are the sacred sites of our people, the dwelling place of our creator..." (Swikes 1989; see also Pearce 1991, 133-34; Hecht and Cockburn 1989, 212-213).
The struggle of the Ecuadorian Huaorani against oil exploration and extractive colonizers (see Gedicks, this volume) has similarly received recurrent attention. For example, the Earth First! journal mentioned how, in 1987, one group of Huaorani, the Tagaeri, killed a nun and a Bishop who were trying to proselytize and pacify them, thereby promoting the objectives of the oil companies.28
The most common tactics employed by solidarity activists involve Amnesty International-style letter writing campaigns on behalf of people involved in ecological struggles, and boycotts attempting to halt consumption of products whose production causes deforestation. Virtually every issue of RAN's World Rainforest Report, the Earth First! Journal, and Wild Earth--the three most influential radical environmental journals in the U.S.--contains updates of various resistance campaigns, urging readers to write letters applying pressure on officials. Boycotts of various sorts are ongoing and sometimes successful. For example, RAN led a successful boycott against Burger King, claiming it was importing beef raised on rainforest-cleared land. More important is the tropical timber boycott promoted since 1989 by Earth First!, RAN and numerous other groups.29 One priority of these efforts has been to halt the export of unsustainably harvested timber from Sarawak in Malaysia.
The effort to save the rainforest upon which these people depend has led to other innovative tactics. One involves clearing 3-4 meter wide corridors through the forest and replanting them with native palm trees in order to demarcate and thereby protect Huaorani territory that the Ecuadorian government previously, but without adequate enforcement, had promised would remain inviolable. Such corridors prevent "accidental" colonization--no one can claim ignorance of the boundary. John Seed of the RIC steered funds raised in the U.S. toward such efforts, including $4,000.00 from the Foundation for Deep Ecology30 (Seed 1994).31 By 1993, with the assistance of solidarity activists, the Huaorani had planted 100,000 native palm trees in corridors 130 kilometers long. They further demarcated the boundary by erecting metal signs reading "Huaorani territory," marked with cross spears.32
John Seed's passion to save the rainforests was not initially motivated by concern for forest dwellers. Now he finds himself deeply involved in indigenous human rights struggles. Once the battle for the rainforest brought him into close proximity to its peoples, he realized that without defending the people who had lived sustainably in it, the forest itself could not be saved. He is amused by the ironies of certain strategic innovations, such as cutting down portions of the rainforest to save it and its people.33
The reason for this sense of irony is that Seed and other radical environmentalists have also become involved in "eco-forestry," sponsoring logging with wokabout somils. These portable saws are carried into the forest and used to cut and mill logs. This type of logging eliminates the need for roads, road building, and heavy equipment, that cause most of the destruction associated with large-scale commercial logging. The idea is to reduce the impact of logging while increasing local incomes, thereby eroding the incentive for local people to support industrial forestry. Seed has also sought funds to purchase wokabouts for ecoforestry projects in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands (Seed 1990). In 1993 in PNG, such "ecoforestry" tactics were reported by RAN to be well underway (Belcher and Gennino 1993:33), leading Seed to solicit additional funds from the U.S. for another innovation, "to train participants in the care and use of waterbuffalo" for hauling the sawn timber from locations far from roads (Seed 1994).34
The resistance to logging by the Penan and Iban tribes in Sarawak has probably drawn more radical environmentalist attention and solidarity action than any other popular ecological resistance movement. Given their willingness to risk arrest, it is not surprising that their resistance captures the radical environmental imagination. In a typical pattern, the rebellion of these traditionally nomadic, foraging peoples was fueled by the devastation of their land-base by logging. In 1982, "the [more] assertive Iban tribe blew up twenty-five bulldozers and logging trucks after loggers refused to leave their lands," repeating such tactics four years later (Scarce 1990:151). In 1987, the Penan began a series of anti-logging blockades which they have sustained well into the 1990s. These blockades were initiated on the advice of Bruno Manzer, a Swiss citizen who had been living among the Penan since 1984 (Snow 1994).35 By 1993, U.S. funds to feed the blockaders were being funneled to them through John Seed and his allies.
The blockades have inspired an international campaign to boycott Sarawakian timber (see Gedicks, this volume). Within the limits of their usually meager resources, Earth First!ers and other radical environmentalists have launched direct efforts to halt the export of forest products and to stimulate international outrage over the destruction of these forests and peoples. In 1989, thirteen international activists arrived in Sarawak, including Earth First! activists from the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden, and a woman from "Robin Wood," a German radical environmental faction founded in 1982. Their objective was to champion the Penan and Dyak resistance. Six of them eventually locked themselves to 60-foot cranes, preventing for one day the loading of timber. Others spirited photographs out of the country for international distribution (Wilson 1991).36 Earth First!, RAN, the RIC, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth, along with numerous smaller groups, have repeatedly demonstrated in protest of tropical timber imports into the U.S., UK, Australia, Germany and Japan. The boycott has reduced Malaysian timber exports, especially to Europe, and to some degree in the U.S.37
Reporting on the indigenous resistance in Sarawak, Earth First! again attends to the nature-based spirituality of the Iban and Penan, implying that they share deep ecological perceptions: "As nomadic people [the Penan] need the forest for their food, medicines, and spiritual identity... They joined together [in these blockades] to speak for the ancient trees, for all life in the jungle and for their grandchildren" (Caruso and Russell 1992; Penan Leaders 1993).
No country has experienced greater diversity of popular ecological resistance than the Philippines. The struggle of Kalinga and Bontoc peoples to prevent a dam threatening to inundate their burial grounds and villages, and another struggle by farmers in the San Fernando province to stop and control logging, have gained international attention (see Porio in this volume and Broad and Cavanagh 1993, ch.4; Durning 1992).
Another indigenous struggle in the Philippines, this time against an energy project threatening a sacred mountain, has drawn the attention of the Earth First! journal. A solemn intertribal blood compact to defend their land, "even to the last drop of blood," was made among the indigenous Lumad communities in 1989. Further threats of armed rebellion were articulated the following year, "We are willing to take up arms, if necessary, to defend our rights to survive as a people of mother earth" (Broad and Cavanagh 1993, 34; cf. Durning 1992: 5-6, 38-39). Once again, a discussion in the Earth First! journal linked the resistance of the Bagobo elders (who come from one of the Lumad groups) to their nature-spirituality. The Bagobo view themselves as "the stewards of the mountain," reported the journal, "engaged by the spirits to protect the ecological and spiritual sanctity of the lands" (Fay and Barnes 1989).38
Earth First! has also closely followed the native Hawaiian and environmentalist resistance to geothermal projects, which traditionally religious Hawaiians believe will injure Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, whom they fear will retaliate (Faulstich 1990). This resistance has led to mass demonstrations including one resulting in 133 arrests (RAN 1990). After the withdrawal of the geothermal development company, the Earth First! journal proclaimed, "Pele's power is still strong" (Pele Defense Fund 1994).39
Many other struggles are discussed in Earth First!, including those of the Karen, Karenni, and Moi in Myanmar (formerly Burma). These tribes have become so desperate in their efforts to preserve their teak forests that they have threatened to attack the loggers directly.40 Strictly non-violent movements, such as the Gandhian Chipko "tree hugging" movements of India, are also considered kindred movements (see McRae 1994; Akula in this volume; Taylor and others 1993:72-76; Schelling 1991; Berreman 1989; and Shiva 1988).41
Earth First!ers also believed (or at least hope) that radical ecological resistance is proliferating in the industrial world. The rebellions in Eastern Europe are viewed as ecologically motivated (Scarce 1990, 141). Further evidence is found in the emergence of Earth First!-style actions in Czechoslovakia in opposition to the Gabcikovo dam project (see Kolenka 1993), in England where activists claim significant victories in resisting road building, and Switzerland where there have been violent anti-automobile demonstrations.42 And great hope is derived from the Celtic renewal and ecological resistance movements of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (see e.g., Oxford Earth First! 1993; Burbridge and Torrance 1993; and McIntosh, Wightman and Morgan 1994, and Hill and others in this volume). Even more militantly, in the Fall of 1993 the "Earth Liberation Front" announced that it had established twenty clandestine cells which had already caused over two million British pounds damage to England's "earth rapers." The "elfs" proclaimed that they had emerged from the British EF! movement (which had not engaged previously in ecotage), and claimed they had coordinated "earth nights" across several continents on pagan holidays. They invited synchronized sabotage during the Halloween holidays (ELF 1993).
Any overview of Earth First!'s international efforts must mention the export of the "road show" strategy to Europe, and as of this writing, the founding and support of Institutes for Deep Ecology (by this and similar names) in England, Germany, Poland, and Russia.43 Such institutes of "applied deep ecology" are rapidly becoming centers for Earth First! style-political resistance and for promoting spiritual awakening of reverence and compassion for the natural world. Toward this latter end, the Council of All Beings and other newly-developed ritual processes are regularly conducted throughout Europe, especially in these countries.44 Such evangelical strategies will likely expand the deep ecology movement in Europe, as they have in the U.S..
In North America, the early 1990s witnessed increasing efforts by Earth First!ers to act in solidarity with this continent's indigenous nations. Such solidarity is expressed through support of groups such as the Apache Survival Coalition, which has been resisting telescope construction desecrating an ecologically sensitive mountain in Arizona, and the Coalition for Nitassian, which is comprised of Innu and Cree Indians and non-indian solidarity activists who have been resisting Hydro Quebec's hydroelectric dam projects (see Gedicks in this volume). Such groups multiplied rapidly in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, several new international environmental "umbrella" groups were formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the Indigenous Environmental Network,45 the Arctic to Amazonia Alliance,46 and the Native Forest Network.47 Each has had significant involvement from Earth First! activists. Each is committed to native peoples and the biological integrity of the regions in which they live. Each hopes to nurture the recently evolving but fragile alliances between Indians and environmentalists in North America.
Critical questions arising from narratives of ecological resistance
The preceding overview has introduced diverse narratives of resistance, from the outlines of Earth First!'s own stories, to accounts of international environmental resistance viewed primarily through the perceptions and hopes of Earth First! activists, supplemented by scholarly treatments where available and relevant. Through international networks of solidarity and resistance, diverse stories merge into a cross-cultural narrative about the global emergence of popular ecological resistance.
For those prone to environmental romanticism, it is easy to be swept up by such narratives where good triumphs over evil and communities of humans and non-humans find their way back to an Edenic harmony. Those willing to risk physical harm or personal liberty to right wrongs and confront us with a moral challenge deserve a fair hearing before they are incarcerated and we turn away indifferently. This book allows these storytellers to pose their questions. It also brings us full circle to the existential questions posed at the outset of this chapter: Do these stories move us? Do they make sense?
But these stories also raise further questions not usually pondered by those wrapped up in them. For example, do the storytellers assume facts not in evidence? Do they exaggerate their claims to conform them to their hopes? Is popular ecological resistance rapidly spreading across the planet? Is it significantly and increasingly animated by deep ecological spiritual sentiments, biocentric ecology, and radical politics? Or rather, are Earth First!ers and their kindred spirits projecting their own presuppositions and hopes onto movements that, although engaged in struggles with significant ecological dimensions, are neither deep ecological or even self-consciously environmentalist?
What is radical environmentalism?
The perceptions and hopes of such radical environmentalists pose an even more basic question that has inspired the inquiry in this volume, "What is radical environmentalism?" Moreover, we can rightly wonder whether, when discussing movements emerging from very different cultural and ecological environments, such terms of reference themselves promote or hinder understanding.48
When I began research exploring international grassroots "environmental" movements, I did so in part because I wanted a comparative reference point for understanding what I was discovering in the North American Earth First! movement. I wanted to know whether Earth First! style activism was unique to the industrialized world, or was increasing around the world. As I learned more about the international movements that Earth First! tended to celebrate, it was not obvious to me that their perceptions were accurate, that kindred forms of an international "radical environmentalism" were actually emerging. There seemed to be significant discontinuities between activist narratives and perceptions, and other accounts of the same movements. Gaps in scholarly analysis exacerbated the difficulty of assessing such discontinuities. Clearly these phenomena deserved much closer scrutiny than most had heretofore received. Moreover, it was obvious that advancing our comprehension of contemporary ecological resistance would best be accomplished through an interdisciplinary and international effort. Such realizations led to an earlier collaboration (Taylor and others 1993) that has now culminated in this volume.
I hope that this chapter has evoked some of the curiosity that has inspired this collaborative inquiry. The reader can compare the type of ecological resistance described in this chapter with those described in the subsequent case studies, and ponder the variety of scholarly questions these diverse narratives pose. In the final chapters we will survey the global panorama of ecological resistance conveyed in these pages, reflect on the impacts of these movements, consider the viability and prospects for those resistance movements that are animated by various forms of nature-spirituality, and reflect on what if any patterns among them make it possible to speak of the international emergence of a global environmental radicalism. I also hope we will allow these narratives to pose their questions and claims directly to us as individuals--that we do not get so wrapped up in the fascinating effort to understand these movements as social phenomena that we lose sight of the high stakes, real-life dramas these case studies present. The struggles described in these pages matter, they are life and death struggles, they demand a personal response.
Notes
1.For those confronted with a host of competing narratives at the increasingly multi-cultural University, choosing narratives can be an especially difficult task. Today's universities not only expose students to more stories than previously, but it is presumed less often that Western culture provides the best and most compelling stories. Consequently, battles over narratives have become increasingly divisive--witness, for example, the "war" over multi-cultural education (Hunter 1991: 197-224). To a great extent such debates are about which stories should be taught at all, and which will be privileged.
2.This discussion is indebted to Gilligan (1982) and Daniel Maguire (1978) who persuasively contend that caring and our affective lives have been undervalued in Western moral thought, by Steven Toulmin's (1970) discussion of the place of reason in ethics (and Hare's "emotivist" critique of ethics that purports to be reason-based, to which Toulmin is responding) and David Tracy's (1978) suggestion that we seek a "critical correlation" between tradition (which I take to be our contending narrative traditions rather than any particular one), our own experiences, and reason.
3.See Zakin 1993, esp. 41-63, for a brief history of some of the earliest resistance that Abbey fictionalized.
4.Any discussion of Earth First! is necessarily interpretive and oversimplified. The movement is pluralistic and constantly changing. One could focus on, defend, or criticize any of one or more movement streams. I could choose, for example, to focus on the most troubling ideas and actions of its activists. This is the approach of movement adversaries. But this too often devolves into "straw-man" analysis--tarring an entire movement with the unthoughtful or distasteful statements or actions of a few. A better approach--one that provides a greater opportunity for learning--is to pose movement contentions in their own and strongest ways, afterward scrutinizing them.
As one who has done extensive field work and textual study of this movement, it is obvious to me that far too much attention has been given to certain statements by Edward Abbey, David Foreman and Christopher Manes (1987; 1990). Some of these statements certainly deserve criticism, as Dave Foreman has admitted (Bookchin and Foreman 1990). But such statements do not represent the movement as a whole and for all time. I trace much of the "straw-man" problem to analysis which depends exclusively on texts. Such dependence leads to preoccupation with ideas and controversies that have appeared in print. This has led to serious misunderstandings of this movement, such as in Guha's 1989 critique of radical environmentalism which, George Sessions notes, "erroneously asserts has little or no interest in the issues of restructuring society to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice" (Sessions 1993b). Another problem is how some early but inaccurate characterizations of Earth First!, such as those found in Stuart McBride's Outside magazine article (1983), are perpetuated by later writers who tend to portray this movement as a group of fed up nature-loving, cowboy-redneck "buckaroos" (Zakin 1993).
5.By burying themselves up to their neck in the road they make it impossible for vehicles to pass without killing the activists. Moreover, removing them without injury is a time-consuming process.
6.At the center of this strategy is Jaspar Carlton, who founded the Biodiversity Legal Foundation.
7.This formulation is from a 5 November 1992 interview with Seed in Eastern Minnesota. For other versions, see Seed and others 1988, 36, 6; and compare Foreman 1990. Seed stressed that, although he put this idea in words that caught on, the idea it expressed had been percolating in the counterculture for some time, for example, in the writings of movement "elders" such as Gary Snyder and Joanna Macy.
8.See Leopold (1948) for the original story. The wolf story is mythologized repeatedly in movement lore, song and poetry. Virtually every road show has some song or prose reference to this event. At least since 1990, the recitation of this story in song serves as an important climax at tribal wilderness gatherings as activists are urged to "dig down deep" and find the "wild green-fire within" to empower them for eco-battles.
9.Captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society that sometimes calls itself the "Navy" of Earth First!, and is best known for sinking whaling ships.
10.The Sea Shepherds now claim credit for sinking or scuttling five whaling vessels, one in Lisbon, two in Iceland, two in Norway (SSCS 1991; Watson 1993a; SSCS 1994). In the summer of 1994, the Norwegian navy unsuccessfully attempted to apprehend a Sea Shepherd ship planning to interfere with Norwegian whaling. Sea Shepherds accused the Norwegians of shooting at and using depth charges against them.
11.For example, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were bombed for their efforts to halt the destruction of old growth ecosystems the Northwestern United States. Bari suffered permanent injuries. Cherney celebrates her spirit of resistance in song. Other people who have suffered martyrdom, such as practitioners of wicca (witchcraft), indigenous peoples, and those who have resisted the enclosure of the commons, are also honored in song and poetry.
12.Overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, such risks have accrued to the activists themselves.
13.I am aware that some supporters of deep ecology, such as George Sessions, Arne Naess, and Warwick Fox (who prefers the term "transpersonal ecology" to deep ecology), desire a more nuanced description of deep ecology than the description provided here. My objective, however, is to look at this movement "on the ground", not as it appears in the discussions of movement intellectuals. It is the "popular" sense of deep ecology that unifies movement activists (to the extent they can be unified, given their diversity).
14.Elsewhere I have discussed in more detail the spirituality, politics and divisions within this movement (Taylor 1991, 1993b). More recently I have argued that many of the strongest wilderness advocates in the past century, and most Earth First! activists today, can accurately be labeled "pagan environmentalists" (Taylor 1995a). Nevertheless, many Earth First!ers prefer to avoid this label, given the long history of persecution faced by real and imagined practitioners of such nature-based spirituality.
15.Many within the so-called New Age movement share deep ecological intuitions about the intrinsic value and sacredness of all species. But they may not share the ecological apocalypticism, or the political analysis, of the radical vanguard of the deep ecology movement. Consequently, they remain politically quiescent.
16.See, for example, the eightfold deep ecology platform developed by Arne Naess and refined with George Sessions, quoted in Jerry Stark's contribution to this volume.
17.My perception here is based on extensive field work and illustrates that the ongoing criticisms of Earth First! by social ecologists, ecofeminists, and many others are based on portraits that were simplistic to begin with in the early years of Earth First!, and which became increasingly so as those with deep ecological moral sentiments adopt ecofeminist and social ecological perspectives. Even in its earliest incarnations, Earth First! had great, although not perfect affinity, with the anarchistic premises of Social Ecology. Ecofeminist perspectives were imported into the movement somewhat later but have been nearly as influential.
18.The Wildlands project, initiated by Dave Foreman (after disassociating himself from Earth First!) in close consultation with Reed Noss (who in 1994 became editor of Conservation Biology), is an innovative effort to develop a comprehensive wilderness recovery strategy for North America. See Foreman and Davis 1992, and for a brief overview, see Taylor 1995b.
19.Some are not optimistic that human agency can produce this desired result. They think industrial society will collapse of its own ecologically unsustainable weight (Wolke 1989, see Taylor 1993b: 194-195).
20.For more detailed analysis of some of these tensions, see Taylor (1993b).
21.A good example of such celebration is the summary of "Radical Environmentalism's International Face" in Scarce (1990:139-159).
22.They met as a result of their common interest in Buddhist practice. Snyder, a Pulitzer prize winning poet considered a movement "elder" by many Earth First!ers, had himself been drawn to "the energy" of Earth First! in the early 1980s. While fond of many present and past Earth First!ers, he remains critical of ecotage and some Earth First! demeanor during protests. He is concerned that movement "theater" too often becomes counterproductive and distracts from the deep ecology message. (Interview with Gary Snyder, 1 June 1993, Davis California.)
23.In collaboration with the Ecologist, probably the most influential international journal of human ecology (the way human culture influences the environment), the World Rainforest Movement now publishes scholarly research exploring rainforest issues. See, e.g., Colchester and Lohmann (1993).
24.One practical reason biodiversity activists should be especially concerned about indigenous peoples is that they "occupy...12-19 percent of the earth's land surface [although] they have officially sanctioned rights to use, at most, 6 percent. In effect, indigenous peoples tend more of the earth than do all park and nature reserve authorities, which together manage 5 percent of the globe's land" (Durning 1992: 28).
25.In 1980, the Indians themselves organized the Indigenous Peoples Union.
26.Warriors from different tribes have killed loggers and miners found in their traditional forest areas (Hecht and Cockburn 1989, 140,143), and similar incidents have reportedly continued in recent years. However, the violence faced by forest dwellers is much more common, continuous, and widespread.
27.He implied they are deep ecologists by suggesting that, to their credit, they "never began debating the nuances of deep ecology" (White 1989). The implication was that they do not need to--they just live it. Interestingly, White acknowledged that they did not consider themselves environmentalists and that they seemed to resent the presence of Northern environmentalists. Nevertheless, he said they were interested in the possibility of the Sea Shepherd sailing up the Amazon with supplies to draw international attention to their struggle.
28.Although reported here (Gordon 1991) in a dispassionate tone, such news is greeted with enthusiasm by some Earth First!ers.
29.See the "special edition" insert in Earth First! 1989 (v. 9, #7). The issue includes reports on resistance and deforestation in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Burma, discusses the U.S. role in the international timber trade, and calls for a consumer boycott of all tropical timber products. For RAN's updated overview of deforestation in Southeast Asia, and a directory of resistance groups in these countries and their international supporters, see Belcher and Gennino (1993).
30.This foundation was funded by Doug Thompkins, an accomplished mountain climber and co-founder of Esprit corporation. When his marriage ended he sold his interest to his wife, eventually endowing the Foundation for Deep Ecology with 150 million U.S. dollars. The foundation has poured resources into dozens of grassroots deep ecology efforts, including major support for Dave Foreman's Wildlands Project. In a new twist for the Sierra Club's strategy of publishing beautiful wilderness picture to engender support for wilderness, with Thompkins' support, it published Clearcut: the tragedy of industrial forestry (Devall 1993). This coffee table book weaves together pictures of devastated landscapes, scientific analyses of the ecological impacts of clearcutting, and deep ecology poetry and philosophy. Arne Naess told me that Thompkins "conversion" to deep ecology has to be considered a movement watershed, and that it occurred when Thompkins read one of Naess' publications (Interview with Arne Naess, 27 May 1994, Killarney, Ireland.)
31.Four activists from the RIC were arrested in 1991 for helping these Indians to demarcate their territory (Gordon 1991).
32.This from a 25 March 1993 letter from Jonathan Miller of the Centro de Investigation de los Bosques Tropicales (CIBT) to John Seed. The letter indicates that demarcation "of the Napo-Galeras sacred jaguar mountain" would soon begin. The RIC also provided a $2,100.00 grant to support a similar demarcation strategy in the Galeras Mountain region of the Andes, which had been legally protected in 1987 by the government of Ecuador but again without adequate enforcement. The RIC has also assisted financially the relocation of colonists from indigenous land and, in some cases, has sought to purchase rainforest for indigenous stewardship.
33.Unless otherwise indicated, John Seed's reflections are drawn from a 5 November 1992 interview in Eastern Minnesota.
34.Seed told me by e-mail on 29 June 1994, however, that the eco-forestry initiative in the Solomon Islands had evaporated, and to his knowledge, had come to a standstill in PNG also. Interestingly, radical environmental entrepreneurs have initiated two separate sustainable forestry cooperatives in Northern California.
35.In December 1992, Manzer and several Japanese activists held a fast in solidarity with the Penan in Japan trying to promote a boycott of Sarawakian timber and force concessions from Japanese timber officials (Snow 1994).
36.This action was controversial. Some local activists complained that the action played into the Malaysian governments hands by reinforcing their argument that the resistance was caused by "Western eco-imperialists" (Lockhead 1992), an argument rejected by one of the North American Earth First! organizers (Jagoff 1992b).
37.Citing the Far Eastern Economic Review, RAN reported that imports of Malaysian wood had fallen 11 percent in Europe (Belcher and Gennino 1993: 29). An update from RAN printed in Earth First! claimed a minor victory in 1993 when Warner Brothers Studios announced they would no longer use tropical timber in set construction (RAN 1993). To gauge the breadth the international solidarity campaign, see especially the mission statements of the international NGOs listed in Belcher and Gennino 1993: 75-95. For stories of Earth First! blockades of ships carrying tropical timber in the U.S. and UK, see Jagoff 1992a and Meese 1992.
38.Alan Durning, a Filipino scholar at the Worldwatch Institute argues that, "amid the endless variety of indigenous belief, there is a striking unity on the sacredness of ecological systems" (1992:29). If true, this helps explain why Earth First!ers have little trouble finding evidence of nature-beneficent spirituality in indigenous resistance movements.
39.The Hawaiian sovereignty movement has assumed a militant environmental posture, blaming tourism for many cultural and ecological woes and opposing tourist development schemes throughout the 1990s. As Mililani B. Trask, Prime Minister of the Sovereign Nation of Hawai`i told me, "environmental issues are now a part of nation building because the land we're fighting for is toxified." For Trask, the struggle for self determination is inseparable from environmental struggle because to put ourselves and our children first "we have to put the Earth first...because we're related to her" (interview 24 May 1994, Killarney, Ireland). During a meeting on indigenous issues at the conference we were attending, Trask told the assembly that it was time to hold a war council, carefully develop a plan and criticize it, so we can save the children and the earth.
40.For an excellent but brief country-by-country overview of the deforestation and environmental movements in Southeast Asia, see Belcher and Gennino (1993).
41.For an example of Earth First! solidarity with Chipko-style movements in India, see the article on the resistance to the Tehri Dam (Nachowitz 1989).
42.Interview with Kraig Klungness and Katie Scarborough of the "Roadfighting Strategy Project" (an offshoot of the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium), 25 May 1994, Killarney, Ireland.
43.Joanna Macy, who had established strong links with the European anti-nuclear movement through her "despair and empowerment" work during the cold war era, and more recently through her "nuclear guardianship" efforts (a vigil to keep track of the era's dangerous radioactive by-products), is the individual most responsible for the spread of deep ecology in Europe. According to John Seed, she is the primary architect of the Council of All Beings (Seed and others 1988), which she and John Seed have led numerous times in Europe. More recently, she has focused on leading advanced training in "applied" Deep Ecology in Europe (interview with Kathleen Sullivan, of the UK's Institute for Applied Deep Ecology, 26 May 1994, Killarney, Ireland).
44.For discussion of this ritual process, see Taylor (1993a, 1993b:190-192).
45.Founded by North American Indians in 1990 at a Dilkon, Arizona conference fiscally sponsored by Greenpeace and several Native American environmental organizations.
46.This was founded by Erik Van Lennup in 1987 to build international support for cultural and ecological survival of indigenous peoples and their places.
47.The Native Forest Network was founded in the early 1990s to do for the temperate forests what RAN was trying do for rain forests, namely, provide a network to increase the effectiveness of temperate forest activists. It has rapidly become the coordinating center for over a dozen temperate forest campaigns internationally.
48.A related question regarding who are the radical environmentalists, can lead us to wonder if it is those who ask deep ecological questions, like Naess and his progeny? Those who employ extra-legal tactics? Those who would displace western religious, philosophical or scientific attitudes toward nature with the primal spiritual perceptions of indigenous peoples or with religions originating in the Far East? Those who would reject Enlightenment rationality, or philosophical Liberalism, because they link "the good" (culture or society) with economic growth and individual license to exploit nature? Those who wish to "go to the root" of the environmental crisis by returning to or defending pre-industrial, agrarian or forager lifeways? Those who wish to overturn property relations and monocultures through land reform and the restoration of the commons (communally controlled and managed lands)? These are types of radicalism that can be kept in mind while reading the subsequent chapters of this volume.