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Confessions of an Eco-Warrior is a book written in 1991 by Dave Foreman. [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2020) |
Confessions of an Eco-Warrior is a book written in 1991 by Dave Foreman. [1]
Dave Foreman was the New Mexico lobbyist for The Wilderness Society in the 1970s. Disillusioned by the lack of progress in safeguarding the environment in the United States, particularly after a wilderness inventory by the United States Forest Service known as RARE II (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation), he was a co-founder of the environmental organization known as Earth First! (EF) in the 1980s. EF originally 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. Later however, after about 1987, EF became primarily associated with non-violent direct action activities.
Foreman took his inspiration for Earth First! from Edward Abbey's book The Monkey Wrench Gang which is a fictional account of a gang of four individuals who take on a pointless yet deeply symbolic effort to destroy and thus halt the machines of human expansion and putative "progress" in the American Southwest.
In 1989 Foreman was implicated in the FBI conspiracy known as THERMCON wherein four activists in Prescott, Arizona, who were only peripherally connected with EF, were enticed by undercover FBI agent Michael Fain (alias Mike Tait) who talked them into the destruction of a power line in the State of Arizona. Foreman himself wasn't involved, however he was arrested and indicted along with the four.
His book Confessions of an Eco-Warrior is partly an autobiographical account of RARE II and his disillusionment with the mainstream environmental movement, the early years of Earth First!, the FBI entrapment, and his ultimate disillusionment with what Earth First! became. It is also partly a statement of his views on wilderness and the state of the environmental movement. [2]
In the book he expressed his view that Earth First!, by 1990, had largely run its course, and was starting to attract new members who took the group in a more countercultural and left-wing direction than he was comfortable associating with. The defining moments for Foreman, according to the book, were when some activists under the Earth First! banner held a "puke-in" at a shopping mall, when Edward Abbey was subjected to harsh criticism and heckling by some younger newcomers to EF when he attended the 1987 EF rendezvous (Foreman and the other old guard of EF, who revered Abbey, were horrified that he would receive that sort of treatment at an EF gathering), and when some Earth First! funds were diverted to launch a punk-style zine called "Live Wild or Die", which among other things espoused anarchism and attacked Foreman's and Abbey's views on some controversial issues then being debated within EF.
While Foreman and most of the rest of the old guard of EF severed their ties to the group in 1990, he remains an environmental activist. At the time Confessions was published, he had just launched a new magazine, Wild Earth (intended as a replacement for the 1980s-era Earth First! Journal), and was soon to launch a new environmental group, The Wildlands Project.
Radical environmentalism is a grass-roots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged from an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism.
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that originated in the Southwestern United States. It was founded in 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and Ron Kezar. Today there are Earth First! groups around the world including ones in Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Tree spiking involves hammering a metal rod, nail or other material into a tree trunk, either inserting it at the base of the trunk where a logger might be expected to cut into the tree, or higher up where it would affect the sawmill later processing the wood. It is used to prevent logging by risking damage to saws, in the forest or at the mill, if the tree is cut, as well as possible injury or death to the worker. The spike can also lower the commercial value of the wood by causing discoloration, reducing the economic viability of logging in the long term, without threatening the life of the tree. It is illegal in the United States, and has been described as a form of eco-terrorism.
Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching is a book edited by Dave Foreman, with a foreword by Edward Abbey.
Eco-terrorism is an act of violence committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property.
Paul Franklin Watson is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
Ecotage is sabotage carried out for ecological reasons.
Edward Paul Abbey was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include Desert Solitaire, a non-fiction autobiographical account of his time as a park ranger at Arches National Park considered to be an iconic work of nature writing and a staple of early environmentalist writing; the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by environmentalists and groups defending nature by various means, also called eco-warriors; his novel Hayduke Lives!; and his essay collections Down the River (1982) and One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1975.
THERMCON was the code name of an FBI operation which was launched in response to the sabotage of the Arizona Snowbowl ski lift near Flagstaff, Arizona, in October 1987 by three people from Prescott, Arizona, Mark Davis, Margaret Millet and Marc Baker. In a November 1987 letter claiming responsibility, the group called themselves the "Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy" (EMETIC). The group named themselves after Evan Mecham, the then-Governor of Arizona. The Arizona Snowbowl spent $50,000 repairing the damage.
David Foreman is an American environmentalist and author, he is a co-founder of Earth First! and a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement.
Wild Earth was an environmentalist magazine published in the United States by the Wildlands Project between 1991 and 2004. The magazine was based in Richmond, Vermont.
William Courtney Rodgers, also known as Bill Rodgers and Avalon, was an environmental activist, animal rights activist and a co-proprietor of the Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona, US. He was one of six environmental activists arrested December 7, 2005 as part of the FBI's Operation Backfire. His charge was one count of arson for a June, 1998 fire set by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) at the National Wildlife Research Center in Olympia, Washington. He was found dead in his jail cell on December 21, 2005. According to police, Rodgers committed suicide using a plastic bag.
Jesse Wolf Hardin, is an American author and founder of the Animá nature-informed teachings and practice, as well as an artist, poet, musician, historian and wilderness restorationist. He is the author of over 500 published articles and 9 books in fields such as personal growth, natural history, deep ecology, spirituality and nature, alternative healing, poetry, wildcrafting, American history and the legends of the Wild West. He lives and teaches at the Animá Sanctuary, located in the mountainous wild-lands of Southwest New Mexico.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".
The Fund For Wild Nature is an environmental organization that gives financial support to grassroot projects and organizations that work for the protection of biodiversity and wilderness. The Fund works exclusively for projects in countries of North America. It has no endowment and is supported entirely by donations from individuals. Their support has helped foster the beginning of such groups as the Rainforest Action Network, Center for Biological Diversity and Ruckus Society. They were founded in 1982 by members of the Earth First! organization, and their headquarters is in Portland, Oregon.
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is a radical environmental movement that views mainstream environmental activism as being ineffective. The group, which perceives the existence of industrial civilization itself as the greatest threat to the natural environment, strives for community organizing to build alternative food, housing, and medical institutions. The organization advocates sabotage against infrastructure, which it views as necessary tactics to achieve its goal of dismantling industrial civilization. Religious and ecological scholar Todd LeVasseur classifies it as an apocalyptic or millenarian movement.
David Gessner is an American essayist, memoirist, nature writer, editor, and cartoonist.
Mike Roselle is an American environmental activist and author who is a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement. Roselle is one of the co-founders of the radical environmental organization Earth First!, as well as of Rainforest Action Network, the Ruckus Society, and Climate Ground Zero.