By: Megan Stransky
Nancy Joyce
Janell Johnson
Dano Ferons
Environmentalist Groups vs. Radical Environmentalist Groups
Environmentalist Groups
Radical Environmentalist Groups
Earth Watch
Earth Liberation Front
The Sierra Club
Earth First!
ELF attacks U.S. Forest Service Research Facility in Irvine, PA
Press Release 3sep02
The ELF Press Office received the following communiqué September 01, 2002:
The Earth Liberation Front is claiming responsibility for the 8/11/02 arson attack on the United States Forest Service Northeast Research
Station in Irvine, Pennsylvania.
The laboratory was set ablaze during the early morning hours, causing over $700,000 damage, and destroying part of 70 years worth of
research. This lesson in "prescribed fire" was a natural, necessary response to the threats posed to life in the Allegheny Forest by proposed
timber sales, oil drilling, and greed driven manipulation of Nature.
This facility was strategically targeted, and if rebuilt, will be targeted again for complete destruction. Furthermore, all other U.S. Forest
Service administration and research facilities, as well as all DCNR buildings nationwide should now be considered likely targets.
These agencies continue to ignore and mislead the public, at the bidding of their corporate masters, leaving us with no alternative to
underground direct action. Their blatant disregard for the sanctity of life and its perfect Natural balance, indifference to strong public
opposition, and the irrevocable acts of extreme violence they perpetrate against the Earth daily are all inexcusable, and will not be tolerated.
If they persist in their crimes against life, they will be met with maximum retaliation.
In pursuance of justice, freedom, and equal consideration for all innocent life across the board, segments of this global revolutionary
movement are no longer limiting their revolutionary potential by adhering to a flawed, inconsistent "non-violent" ideology. While
innocent life will never be harmed in any action we undertake, where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to
implement justice, and provide the needed protection for our planet that decades of legal battles, pleading, protest, and economic
sabotage have failed so drastically to achieve.
The diverse efforts of this revolutionary force cannot be contained, and will only continue to intensify as we are brought face to face with the
oppressor in inevitable, violent confrontation. We will stand up and fight for our lives against this iniquitous civilization until its reign of
TERROR is forced to an end - by any means necessary.
In defense of all life,
Pacific E.L.F.
Contact:
North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office
elfpress@tao.ca
http://www.earthliberationfront.com
Earth Liberation Front
ELF: destroy luxury homes, SUVs, private property
Marxist & Anarchist belief system that does not accept right of
private property ownership
Private Property laws are instrumental in American Capitalist
society
Vail Resort Arson, October 1998
October 19,1998: arson destroyed and damaged $12 million worth of chairlifts and mountain
buildings, “in the name of the lynx”
Was a calculated attack because it was the same day a controversial construction project was about
to begin into old growth forest on federally owned land
Email received days later from ELF claiming credit for the fire to protect a rare species whose habitat
was disappearing
All of the buildings destroyed have been rebuilt. The gases emitted from the fires, the clean up costs,
and the cost and environmental impact of a whole new construction site is more destructive than
having left the ski resort as it stood.
Examples of other acts of terrorism:
1.
$1 million arson at Boise Cascades NW Regional Headquarters in 1999
2.
$1 mill at US Forest Service Research Station in Pennsylvania, 2002
1.
Ruined 70 years worth of research
3.
$1 million worth of damages by setting fire to three luxury homes in
Snohomish, WA.
Arrests:
Chelsea Dawn Gerlach
Confessed and was
sentenced to nine years in
prison for committing acts of
terrorism by setting fire and
topping a high voltage
transmission line in
December 1999. Pleaded
guilty to conspiracy and
arson in string of 20 fires,
that did $40 mil of damage,
including the Vail Resort
Arson.
Kevin Tubbs
12 years 7 months in
prison for arson of a forest
ranger station, police
substation, dealership
selling SUVs, and a tree
farm. Pleaded guilty to
conspiracy arson charges
for string of 20 fires,
including the Vail Resort
Injury and Death
Although there has never been an injury or death stemming from an
ELF action, it can happen regardless how carefully things are
planned in advance. A critical evaluation of past ELF actions
exposes the obvious: arson is a dangerous and unpredictable
strategy that can get out of control very easily. Even if the attack
does not injure or kill an innocent person, there are no
winners. Torching sport utility vehicles, ski resorts, research labs
and McMansions, releases huge amounts of toxic gasses into the
atmosphere - creating far more greenhouse gasses than if they were
left alone. The end result: everything is rebuilt, replaced or
repaired. This DOUBLES the burden on the environment and
taxpayers! An exercise in futility and self-defeat.
"Built Green? Nope black!" said the spraypainted sign that bore the initials of the radical
environmental group Earth Liberation Front.
Four multimillion dollar homes burned to the
ground in a suburb of Seattle, Washington.
Earth Watch
Engage people worldwide in scientific field research &
education to promote understanding and action necessary for
a sustainable environment
Research – Education – Conservation
Hold research based expeditions for people to participate in
Research:
Focus on applied research where they can make a significant
difference in these central global ecological challenges:
 Sustainability of coastal, forested, agricultural, and
freshwater ecosystems
 Managing protected areas and species at the landscape and
seascape levels to enhance biodiversity and provide local and
regional ecosystem services
 Restores, revitalizes, conserves global cultural heritage
through better understanding of socio cultural links to natural
resource use, envi management, and bio diversity
 Addresses the challenge of climate change and threat to
global sustainability
Expeditions
Over 93,000 volunteers have joined scientists in the field as research assistants,
contributing more than 11 million hours of their time to frontline envi research
worldwide
Not Eco tours, volunteer, or volunteer vacation – people of all ages, diverse
backgrounds – united by desire to connect and protect the planet
Learn hands on about important environmental issues, an directly (and legally),
support research that seeks solutions
EX:
1.
2.
3.
Volcanology & Ecology in Nicaragua
Canopies, Climate, and Critters of the Ecuadorian Rainforest
Managing Mangroves and Capturing Carbon in Kenyan Communities
Success Stories
In 2008, volunteers on the Samburu Communities
and Wildlife project contributed to 219 interviews
with 76 traditional medical practitioners. The
result was 58 plants species subsequently
identified as being used for the treatment of
various illnesses in different communities in
Laikipia and Samburu regions of northern Kenya.
When plant samples were extracted and tested
against micro-organisms known to cause these
diseases, many of the plants were indeed found
to be effective. They were potentially useful in
killing the bacteria relating to the organisms
causing malaria, typhoid, wound infection and
even the one causing cystic fibrosis.
Earthwatch is working to restore and manage mangrove
plantations and explore the capacity of different mangrove
species to store carbon, which could help mitigate the effects of
climate change. The new plots are already producing wild
seedlings, indicating that the project should result in selfsustaining, valuable woodland providing key habitat and shore
protection in areas that have been barren for over 30 years.
Mark Huxham, the Earthwatch scientist leading the Tidal Forests
of Kenya project confirms there has been an 87 per cent survival
rate of the trees at the site, and his conservative estimates predict
180 tons of carbon will be absorbed over the 25 year forest growth.
Because mangrove forests collect peat, they will continue to act as
carbon sinks for many years to follow. We are involved with the
local community to ensure the plantations can be sustainably
managed in the long term.
Mexico (Baja Peninsula): Volunteer efforts pay off for black sea turtles
After a six-year campaign, conservationists are celebrating the designation of the Bahia de los Angeles
in Baja, Mexico, as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Hundreds of Earthwatch volunteers contributed to
this success by helping gather data during the Tracking Baja's Black Sea Turtles expeditions. The bay is
home to numerous marine species as well as birds and other coastal wildlife. This new protected
status for the area may also help the critically endangered vaquita, (the world's smallest and most
endangered cetacean), a shy porpoise found only in the northern part of the Gulf of California and
believed to be close to extinction.
Earth First!
Radical Environmental Advocacy Group emerging in the United States in 1979
It is not enough to ask politicians and corporations to destroy less wilderness, we need
to preserve it all, to recreate lost habitats and reintroduce extirpated predators. Stop &
reverse poisoning of our air, water, and soil.
Formed in response to increasingly corporate, compromising, and ineffective
environmental community. Use all tools, from grassroots and legal organizing to civil
disobedience and monkey wrenching. When law wont fix problem, bodies put on the
line to stop destruction.
Believe that life exists for its own sake, that industrial civilization is anti-Earth, antiwoman, and anti-liberty.
Simply
Put: Earth Comes First.
No Compromise
Taking direct public actions is the way to go, according to Earth
First!ers  tree spiking, sabotage, arson.
Warrior Society – taking any means possible to defend mother
earth. Declines to participate in democratic process, preferring
damage, disabling and destroying property
Main focus: genetically modified crops
Even when they are giving proposals in a legal fashion, they are
highly unrealistic, such as the outline for a 16.8 million acre
preserve of California Desert
The Sierra Club tried helping them by increasing their acreage
requested in a bill to Senator Alan Cranston – accepted 8 million
acre proposal which resulted in 81 wilderness areas inn Mojave
National Park
Philosophy of Earth First!
Dave Foreman describes the philosophy that motivates Earth First! in Confessions of an Eco-Warrior:
"An individual human life has no more intrinsic value than does an individual Grizzly
Bear life. Human suffering resulting from drought and famine in Ethiopia is tragic,
yes, but the destruction there of other creatures and habitat is even more tragic."
"Ours is an ecological perspective that views Earth as a community and recognizes
such apparent enemies as 'disease' (e.g., malaria) and 'pests' (e.g., mosquitoes) not as
manifestations of evil to be overcome but rather as vital and necessary components of
a complex and vibrant biosphere."
"An antipathy to 'progress' and 'technology.' We can accept the pejoratives of
'Luddite' and 'Neanderthal' with pride."
"There is no hope for reform of industrial empire."
"We humans have become a disease -- the Human pox."
Prison Watch
A large part of the Earth First! Journal is the support of the
prisoners (from all radical groups) that have been jailed due to
their illegal actions.
Examples:
Marie Jeanette Mason #04672-061, FMC Carswell, Federal Medical Center, PO Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX
76127, USA. Serving 21 years and 10 months for her involvement in an ELF arson against a University building
carrying out Genetically Modified crop tests. Marie also pleaded guilty to conspiring to carry out ELF actions
and admitted involvement in 12 other ELF actions.
Michael Sykes #696693, 10274 Boyer Road, PO Box 5000, Carson City, MI 48811, USA. Serving
four to ten years for anti-sprawl arson, criminal damage to a 80-ft utility pole, spray-painting
political graffiti and attempting to chisel through cement is his jail cell.
Marco Camenisch Postfach 3143, CH-8105 Regensdorf, Switzerland. Serving 18 years: Ten years for using
explosives to destroy electricity pylons leading from nuclear power stations and eight years for the murder of a
Swiss Boarder Guard whilst on the run. In '02 Marco completed a 12-year sentence for destroying electricity
pylons in Italy.
Sierra Club
Since 1892, Sierra Club has been working to protect
communities, wild places, and the planet itself.
Largest and most influential grassroots environmental
organization in the U.S.
Mission Statement:
To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth;
to practice and promote responsible use of the earths
ecosystems and resources; to educate and enlist humanity
to protect and restore the quality of the natural and
human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry
out these objectives
Coal & Clean Energy
Linked to asthma, toxic mercury, and
more
Clean Energy: solar & wind power
are ready to provide clean affordable
energy
Action: campaign to move beyond
coal – act nationally and locally
Have successfully stopped over 150
coal plants to date
Tell Obama – new air polluting
standard at www.beyondcoal.org/actnow
Oil
- Americans consume 25% of worlds
produced oil, yet nation has less than
3% of worlds proven oil reserves
- Leading sources of smog, pm, toxic
pollutants
- Promote real solutions to cut oil use
such as smart transportation systems,
clean cars, clean renewable energy
Our Priorities
• Accelerate the move from dirty coal and oil to clean renewable
energy and efficiency.
• Push for strong federal and state laws and safeguards to prevent
the natural gas industry from damaging the environment and
communities.
• Expose damaging practices in the gas industry, and close
loopholes that exempt oil and gas operations from regulation.
• Support residents seeking to hold the industry to the highest set of
standards.
• Communicate with the public about the risks of natural gas and
ways to make it cleaner
Activism
Community where Sierra Club activists and supporters can work together to get things
done, on and offline
From cleaning streams, protecting endangered species, getting wilderness designation,
ending commercial logging, the network is the place where you can collaborate and
accomplish
You can:
 upload documents and create searchable resources for your team
 Brainstorm, create, edit documents
 Promote events
 Create and promote opportunities for volunteers to get involved
 Invite people to join
Sierra Club has established “brand name recognition” especially when regarding their
huge efforts on lobbying government for changes
Wilderness Act of 1964
Throughout 20th century, they have continued to advocate for the
preservation and continuance of natural lands.
By the 1960s, Sierra Club Chapters were fighting to get Congress to
pass the Wilderness Act, which it did, in 1964.
Protects about 9 million acres of federal land
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas
where man and his own works dominate the
landscape, is hereby recognized as an area
where the earth and community of life are
untrammeled by man, where man himself is a
visitor who does not remain.”
The Face of Environmentalism
Many Environmentalists
are known as tree huggers
If Environmentalist’s had their way the world would be
Garden of Eden, with no human intervention
The fundamental goal of radical
environmentalism is not clean air and
clean water
 Radical environmentalists' goal is not
human health, happiness, or life.
 Their expressed goal is to prevent man
from changing his environment, from
intruding on nature

Radical Environmentalist’s attempt
to
inhibit or prohibit
•Development of Alaskan oil
•Offshore drilling
•Nuclear power
•All other practical forms of
energy
Environmentalists oppose construction that
could lead to more housing, commerce,
and jobs-in favor of endangered speciesleaving projects abandoned
Medical research is sacrificed
to the “rights” of animals
Logging is sacrificed to the
“rights” of trees
Climategate
Various legislative bodies have
passed laws and regulations
•
•
•
•
•
A gradual elimination of capitalism
Expansion of governmental control over private life
Gradual abolition of private property or private control over property
Extreme financial and criminal penalties for “polluters”
Removal of humans from large portions of the earth’s surface and return of
the environment to its pristine state
By: Megan Stransky
ELF Damages in the United States by Type and
Cost
Earth Liberation Front (ELF)

1998-Vail, Colorado
Earth Liberation Front

2003- West Covina,
CA
Earth Liberation Front

2003- San Diego,
CA
Earth Liberation Front

2002- Fairfield,
Maine
Animal Liberation Front (ALF)




1979- New York
University Medical
School
1987- University of
California- Davis
veterinary laboratory
1992- Michigan State
University-animal
research laboratory
2001- McDonald’s,
Arizona
Eco-terrorism

"It remains what we
would probably
consider the No. 1
domestic terrorism
threat, because they
have successfully
continued to conduct
different types of
attacks in and around
the country," said FBI
Special Agent
Operation Backfire

In 2006, a nine-year federal
sting dubbed "Operation
Backfire" was able to dissolve
a cell responsible for 20 acts
of arson in five Western
states over five years. To
date, Operation Backfire has
had impressive results: more
than 40 criminal acts ranging
from vandalism to arson have
been solved. Seventeen
individuals have been
indicted, and 15 of them pled
guilty and were sentenced in
2007 to jail time ranging from
37 months to 188 months.
Environmental Impacts of Radical
Environmentalism
Impacts are Indirect
Setting Fires adds to release of
Greenhouse Gases
 Buildings that are burned are rebuilt
 Overall negative impact on environment

What’s Released in a Fire

Major Emissions
 H2O
 CO2

Minor Emissions
 CO
 NOx
 SOx
 Hydrocarbons
Materials Used to Build Modern
Structures

Lumber
 Framing, Doors, etc.

Concrete
 Foundation

Plastic Piping
 Plumbing


Electrics
Drywall
 Made of gypsum or plaster
board

Roofing
 Tile, Shingles, etc.

Furnishings
Vail Ski Resort
Burned by E.L.F. in
October, 1998
 $12 Million in
Damages
 Protest over
planned Expansion

Vail Ski Resort

All buildings
destroyed by Arson
are rebuilt
 New raw materials
are used

Expansion
Completed with
several hundred
million invested
La Jolla Crossroads
August 1, 2003
 $50 Million in
Damages
 Protesting Urban
Sprawl

La Jolla Crossroads
Construction
Restarted after fire
 Apartments finished
and opened to the
public without
further fires

Conclusion
Majority of buildings burned by arsons
rebuilt
 Rebuilding requires more natural
resources
 Fires release unnecessary Greenhouse
Gases

Sources










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http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/elf.htm
http://www.earth-liberation-front.org/
http://www.earthwatch.org/
www.earthfirstjournal.org/
http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/271-earth-first
http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1095&context
=srhonorsprog
http://www.sierraclub.org/
http://gm-foods.synthasite.com/earth-liberation-front.php
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/ecoterrorism.asp?learn_cat=extremism
&learn_subcat=extremism_in_america&xpicked=4&item=eco
http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/271-earth-first