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.
Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching is a book edited by Dave Foreman, with a foreword by Edward Abbey.
Craig Rosebraugh is an American writer, filmmaker and activist advocating for political and social justice, and environmental and animal protection.
Eco-terrorism is an act of violence which is committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property.
Ecotage is sabotage carried out for environmental reasons.
Rodney Adam Coronado is an American animal rights and environmental activist known for his militant direct actions in the late 1980s and 1990s. As part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he sank two whaling ships and destroyed Iceland's sole whale-processing facility in 1986. He led the Animal Liberation Front's Operation Bite Back campaign against the fur industry and its supporting institutions in the early 1990s, which was involved in multiple firebombings. Following an attack on a Michigan State University mink research center in early 1992, Coronado was jailed for nearly five years. He later admitted to being the sole perpetrator. The 1992 federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act was created in response to his actions. The operation continued with a focus on liberating animals rather than property destruction. Coronado also worked with Earth First.
Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a social resistance strategy in which small, independent groups, or individuals, challenge an established institution such as a law, economic system, social order, or government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent protest and civil disobedience to vandalism, terrorism, and other violent activity.
Tre Arrow is a green anarchist who gained prominence in the U.S. state of Oregon in the late 1990s and early 2000s for his environmental activism, bid for Congress as a Pacific Green Party candidate, and then for his arrest and later conviction for committing acts of arson on cement and logging trucks. He unsuccessfully sought political asylum in Canada, and was extradited to Portland, Oregon, on February 29, 2008, to face 14 counts of arson and conspiracy. These actions were claimed as acts of protest by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). On June 3, 2008, Arrow pleaded guilty to 2 counts of arson and was sentenced with 78 months in prison. He was released to a halfway house in 2009.
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI. The operation resulted in convictions and imprisonment of a number of people, many of whom were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.
The Green Scare is legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement, that occurred mostly in the 2000s. It alludes to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society.
Darren Todd Thurston is a former Canadian animal rights activist.
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.
Samuel Joseph Melville, was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism as the motivation for the bombings. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to bombing the Federal Office Building in lower Manhattan, as well as to assaulting a marshal in a failed escape attempt. A key figure in the 1971 Attica Prison riots, he was shot by the police and killed when the uprising was put down by force.
The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network (ELPSN), also known as Spirit of Freedom, is a network to provide information on people imprisoned for direct action relating to campaigns on environmental and other issues. It includes earth liberationists, animal liberationists, those fighting on anti-war, anti-nuclear and peace issues, indigenous struggles, anti-fascism, land rights, ploughshares and more.
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".
Resistance: Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement was an environmentalist magazine that was created with the stated aim to "inform, inspire, and energize the earth liberation movement". One of the activists involved was former Earth Liberation Front spokesman, Craig Rosebraugh.
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is a 2011 American documentary film by filmmaker Marshall Curry. It tells the story of activist Daniel G. McGowan of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), from his first arson attacks in 1996 to his 2005 arrest by the Department of Justice. The film also examines the ethics of the ELF at large and how terrorism is to be defined.
Jake Conroy is an American animal rights activist and vegan who was involved with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an international campaign to force the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), an animal-testing company based in the UK and US, for which he designed and maintained the SHAC websites. Conroy had previously been a co-founder and activist for an anti-whaling group Ocean Defense International, formally called Sea Defence Alliance, and director of Northwest Animal Rights Network.
Bryan Denson is an American author and investigative journalist who often writes about spies, terrorists, and other national security issues. His work won the 2006 George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize during his 20-year career at The Oregonian newspaper and oregonlive.com.
