Environmental Life Force (ELF), also known as the Original ELF, was the first radical environmental group in 1977 to use explosive and incendiary devices to advance their agenda.
Environmental Life Force (ELF), also known as the Original ELF, was the first radical environmental group in 1977 to use explosive and incendiary devices to advance their agenda.
The name was founded by John Clark Hanna who was the only member of the group to be arrested and convicted for the use of explosives on federal property. The ELF conducted armed actions in northern California and Oregon and disbanded in 1978 following Hanna's arrest for placing incendiary devices on seven crop-dusters at the Salinas, California airport on May 1, 1977. [1]
They said that "warfare" designed pesticides were being used on domestic crops, specifically a chemical banned after its extensive use in Vietnam. A communiqué to the Independent (Santa Cruz) later provided the group with a frontpage story. They also called for above-ground organizations to initiate a boycott of sprayed food and for the public to criticize the process:
The US Forest Service continues to apply 245T to kill broadleafed trees and shrubs in recently logged forests so conifers such as pine, fir and cedar trees can be re-established quickly. [2]
There was also an article published in Open Road in August 1977 featuring the bombing at a paper publishing company in Oregon City. The target was against a company who the ELF claimed were responsible for using a dangerous chemical called Tordon for aerial spraying, used as part of a program in Vietnam and responsible for causing cancer and birth defects. [3]
Although not much is known about the early ELF activists, because of their efforts to remain anonymous, John Hanna, who claims to have founded the movement along with other individuals, talks of how he used explosives against a target:
ELF took extraordinary measures to avoid loss of life or injury. The devices were designed so only the low-yield detonators would fire. The napalm mix had been allowed to solidify so it could not catch fire. The fuses were timed to ignite at 2:00 am. I waited nearby until all the detonators exploded. If someone would have happened by, I was prepared to warn him or her off, even at the risk of capture. Later in the day, a communique was dropped at the local newspaper. ELF listed viable alternatives to the excessive and inappropriate use of pesticides on our food.
Unlike his former years, Hanna no longer advocates militancy, although does not denounce it, only denouncing militancy that leads to violence. He instead promotes the adoption of legal measures, commenting: "I accomplished more for the environmental cause through my research organization and its spin-offs than I ever did as an eco-guerilla." [4]
Several years later, the ELF acronym resurfaced, representing another eco-guerilla entity with similar philosophies, the Earth Liberation Front. There is no link between the two groups and John Clark Hanna no longer advocates the tactics of either group. [1]
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization, destabilization, division, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a saboteur. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identities because of the consequences of their actions and to avoid invoking legal and organizational requirements for addressing sabotage.
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.
Eco-terrorism is an act of violence which is committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property.
A defoliant is any herbicidal chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause their leaves to fall off. Defoliants are widely used for the selective removal of weeds in managing croplands and lawns. Worldwide use of defoliants, along with the development of other herbicides and pesticides, allowed for the Green Revolution, an increase in agricultural production in mid-20th century. Defoliants have also been used in warfare as a means to deprive an enemy of food crops and/or hiding cover, most notably by the United Kingdom during the Malayan Emergency and the United States in the Vietnam War. Defoliants were also used by Indonesian forces in various internal security operations.
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.
The Lewes bomb was a blast-incendiary field expedient explosive device, manufactured by mixing diesel oil and Nobel 808 plastic explosive. It was created by Lieutenant Jock Lewes, one of the original members of L Detachment SAS in 1941.
The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human life.
Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an area. Although herbicidal warfare use chemical substances, its main purpose is to disrupt agricultural food production and/or to destroy plants which provide cover or concealment to the enemy, not to asphyxiate or poison humans and/or destroy human-made structures. Herbicidal warfare has been forbidden by the Environmental Modification Convention since 1978, which bans "any technique for changing the composition or structure of the Earth's biota".
The light brown apple moth is a leafroller moth belonging to the lepidopteran family Tortricidae.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has taken a variety of criminal actions since 1992. Actions were rarely publicised prior to 1996 and are therefore difficult to find.
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 Canadian former animal rights activist.
The TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook is a 256 page United States Army technical manual intended for the United States Army Special Forces. It was first published in 1969 by the Department of the Army.
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.
This timeline of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions describes the history, consequences and theory of direct action on behalf of animals by animal liberation activists using, or associated with the ALF.
The light brown apple moth is a leafroller moth belonging to the lepidopteran family Tortricidae. The moth was confirmed to be present in mainland United States in 2007, principally along the West Coast. The State of California and the US Department of Agriculture quickly imposed agricultural quarantine measures and decided to use aerial spraying to try to eradicate the moth. This led to substantial public controversy and claims of adverse health effects. Aerial spraying was discontinued in 2008. Trapping, monitoring, and inspection efforts were reduced or eliminated in 2012 due to budget problems.
On March 3, 2008, four multimillion-dollar homes were set on fire in Echo Lake, Washington, on Echo Lake Road, off State Highway 522. Slogans spray-painted on one of the burned houses' fences attributed the arson to the Earth Liberation Front, with words such as "Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF." ELF is a collective name for anonymous and autonomous individuals or groups that, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the natural environment".
Pesticide drift refers to the unintentional diffusion of pesticides and the potential negative effects of pesticide application, including off-target contamination due to spray drift as well as runoff from plants or soil. This can lead to damage in human health, environmental contamination, and property damage. Some pesticides are more likely to drift than others which can mean it is more harmful in some cases. For example, fumigants which are gaseous pesticides move easily through air and will drift if not contained. Some pesticides look like a cloud when they drift while others can be invisible and odorless.
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".
