A Big pase in Jf.rizona Saboteurs for a Better rv / , L was founded in 1980, were known By JIM ROBBINS mostly for their high-pitched rhetoric and acts of civil disobedi- N May 30, i_n the darkness ence. Members have linked arms of an . Arizona desert to block logging trucks and evening, some 30 agents camped out on platforms in old- O of the Federal Bureau of growth trees that were scheduled Investigation arrested two· men to be cut down. They have dressed and a woman who the authorities as grizzly bears and blocked traf- said were trying to topple a tower fie to protest development at Yel- that carried high-voltage lines to lowstone National Park and have the Central Arizona Project, a rolled a plastic "crack" down the mammoth irrigation system op- face of Glen Canyon dam in Ari- posed by many environmentaltsts. zona. The next morning David Fore- The F.B.l. said the attempt to man, a former farrier, was ar- topple the Arizona tower was a rested at his home in Tucson, trial run for the destruction of Ariz., and charged with the others power lines that feed electricity to with conspiring to sabotage Fed- the Palo Verde nuclear power eral energy plants. plant in Arizona, the Diablo Can- Mr. Foreman is the founder of yon nuclear plant in Calfornia and Earth First!, a radical environ- the Energy Department's Rocky mental group advocating a tactic Flats plutonium fabrication plant called "monkey wrenching." in Colorado. If the Federal charges are true, The F.B.l. said the three people the foiled Arizona plot may be the arrested in the . desert also cut most serious yet by a small but down 29 power poles leading to growing number of radical envi- three uranium mines in Arizona ronmentalists who, frustrated and cut down pylons supporting a with the political process, take di- ski lift near flagstaff. rect, illegal action against what A_ dvocating 'Deviltry' they see as environmentally de- structive developments. The group's leader, Mr. Fore- Since the publication in 1975 of man, is represented in the Arizona Edward Abbey's novel "The Mon- case by Gerry Spence, the Wyo- key Wrench Gang," which glori- ming lawyer whose clients have fies guerrillas who plot to blow up included the family of Karen Silk- Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, offi- wood, who sued the Kerr-McGee cials from the United States For- Corporation. Mr. Spence said the est Service, the Park Service and F.B.l. has blown the Arizona inci- other agencies have reported a dent far out of proportion and he growing number of cases of envi- denied that ·Mr. Foreman f7.Y'i, ronmental sabotage. Vandals anything about a conspiracy. have poured sand into the gas In promoting his cause, Mr. tanks of bulldozers in Utah, Foreman has been arrested for pounded metal spikes into trees to civil disobedience four times and thwart loggers, and buried salt in convicted three times. He wrote a a dirt airstrip in an Idaho wilder- book called "Ecodefense: A Field ne"Ss so that moose and deer would Guide to Monkey Wrenching," dig holes in the runway. which describes tactics for disa- . or1sm a 1 s not Associated Press bling heavy machinery, toppling vandalism," Mr. Foreman said in Members of Earth First!, including its founder, David Foreman (third billboards, destroying helicopters an interview last year. "It's a from bottom), in Federal Court in Phoenix last month after being and "miscellaneous deviltry.". form of worship toward the Earth. charged with conspiring to sabotage Federal energy plants. Many environmentalists find It's really a very spiritual thing to this kind of activity annoying and o out a " believe that groups like Earth But many others in the environmental move- "It's a difficult problem," said John Ruff, a First! are hurting the rest of the movement. In ment regard Mr. Foreman's views and actions as Forest Service special agent in San Franciscct. 1987 Peter Steinhart, a contributing editor to dangerously counterproductive. "You can't watch 20 million acres with 200 law Audubon magazine, wrote that tactics like sabo- At the root of radical environmentalism is, :;;;::;1-:-;::;:--;-;:::;::::;::;-;::-::? tage are "the equivalent of Ollie North, the cow- philosophy called biocentrism, or "deep ecn ups 1 e Earth First! are':-'..J.' · boy colonel, who in the name of patriotism de• ogy," which holds that all life on the planet has a corporate extremism," sai lston cided the laws were wrong." He added, "One right to exist, and that humans have no right to Montana author who is form of lawlessness invites the other." dominate or destroy other forms of life. 1 radical environmentalists. "Corporate extrem- Murray Bookchin, who runs the Institute for While some like-minded groups - Greenpeace, ism begats environmental extremism." · Social Ecology in Plainfield, Vt., and who is work- for example - believe in non-violent direct ac- Mr. Chase, who is also extremely critical of ing to form a Green Party in the United States, tions such as hanging protest banners and some- corporate and Park Service policies that he says calls Earth First! members "eco-fascists." times engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, a damage the environment, said groups like Earth "In its more extreme form, the way Dave few, much smaller groups like Earth First!, Sea First! "believe that saving the environment will Foreman expresses it, people are a cancer on the Shepard, Stump Suck and some animal rights take nothi s th · · planet," Mr. Bookchin said. He said he is dis- . groups take their outrage further and advocate e continued: "As the mainstream organiza- turbed by articles in the Earth First! journal ' violence against technology. tions have grown so enormously they've come to suggesting that immigration from Mexico hurts · Thomas Lyons, a Forest special agent resemble the Federal bureaucracy they watch. the American environment and that AIDS is a in Washington, D.C., said the kind of sabotage a,d- They've shifted from activism to lobbying and way for nature to regulate overpopulation. vocated by Earth First! has been growing for the litigation. A lot of people of the protest generation "That's atavistic," he said. "It could lead to past five years and that Forest Service agents are impatient with them." racism or cultural chauvinism. It's evil stuff no are now taught ways to combat it. In the past, members of -Earth First!, which matter how well intentioned they may be."