Environmental terrorism: A case study

Abstract

Abstract The radical environmental movement, Earth First, was founded in 1980 by David Foreman, a Washington environmental lobbyist. Adopting as their slogan “No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth,” the movement progressed through the early formative stages usually associated with protest groups: letter‐writing campaigns, staged protests, sit‐ins, antiestablishment skits, and so forth. But over the past several years, Earth First has turned to violence, sabotage, and terrorism against land developers and the lumber, oil, and electricity industries. Their well‐educated, white, middle‐class members have more recently focused their attention on planning serious attacks on nuclear facilities and associated electric systems. In 1986 they were responsible for a successful attack on the Palo Verdes nuclear facility's transmission lines. In June 1989, three members were arrested for attempting to cut down power lines in Arizona as part of a plan to disrupt operations at the Diablo Canyon nuclear generating plant. The overall radical environmentalist movement and its sabotage efforts appear to be spreading. On April 29, 1990, eco‐terrorists claimed responsibility for a serious sabotage incident in Palo Alto, California, and on the same day power lines were sabotaged in Fairfax County, Virginia, by unknown perpetrators. It is clear that in the United States a national ecoterrorist network exists whose main purpose is to commit illegal acts in defense of the environment. These ecoter‐rorists appear to be gaining strength as well as the capability to increase their activities around the country. The radical environmentalist movement has the potential to become the country's major domestic terrorism problem.