EARTH FIRST!: THE RISE OF ECO-ACTION By Sierra Braggs A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Social Science: Environment & Community Committee Membership Elizabeth Watson, Ph.D., Committee Chair Anthony V. Silvaggio, Ph.D., Committee Member J. Mark Baker, Ph.D., Committee Member J. Mark Baker, Ph.D., Graduate Coordinator December 2012 ABSTRACT EARTH FIRST!: THE RISE OF ECO-ACTION Sierra Braggs This thesis examines the change in Earth First! praxis elaborated by North Coast Earth First! (in Northern California) from 1985-1990 in order to identify how Judi Bari’s theory of “revolutionary ecology” emerged as political force from within a movement founded upon wilderness preservationism and the exclusion of people from nature, creating space for alliances between environmental activists and timber workers to emerge and exposing an emerging politics of encounter underway in the North Coast. Assessments of Earth First! typically focus on its proliferation of direct action interventions against industrial destruction and Judi Bari’s leadership in diverging from traditional EF! wilderness preservationism, most notably her attempts to build alliances between EF! activists and timber workers. To date, scholars have failed to assess how the structural formation of EF! as a decentralized anti-authoritarian non-organization has facilitated not only the proliferation of direct action interventions against industrial destruction, but also a highly reflexive radical environmental praxis. I argue that the shift toward what Jonathan London has termed a “post-wilderness environmentalism” was fostered by a “culture of anarchism” combined with an emergent “politics of encounter” operating within the larger Earth First! movement. The thesis elaborates a better ii understanding of Earth First! organizational structure, movement agenda, and cognitive praxis, highlighting open membership, oppositional systems of information, insurgent learning spaces, and commitments to anti-authoritarian politics as critical to an innovative radical environmental praxis. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am forever changed from my encounters with Accíon Zapatista de Humboldt. The research contained herein is the product of ongoing, collective inquiry into methods for resisting neoliberalism and convivial tools for building “another world.” Thanks to Manuel “Manolo” Callahan for the invitation to use this thesis as an opportunity to conduct research in order to advance social movement, and for ongoing and insightful dialogue, critique, and engagement with my research and writing over the last seven years. Thanks to Verbena for her insight into Earth First!, love, and being the change I always hope to see in the world. The final thesis could not have been achieved without the direct daily support of my mother-in-law (and so much more) Alice, and my soulmate James who provided ongoing encouragement and made significant sacrifices so that I could finish. I owe my love of Nature and desire for sustainability to my parents and grandparents, who gifted me with a childhood of swimming in pristine rivers and lakes, hiking in the mountains, and playing with rainbow trout, salamanders, and frogs. Finally, for help editing in the “eleventh hour” I thank my thesis committee, sister Holly, and long-time friend Nina. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv PREFACE ........................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION: TOWARD A POST-WILDERNESS ENVIRONMENTALISM....... 9 Toward a Post-Wilderness Environmentalism ............................................................. 11 CHAPTER 1 “TIMBER WARS” ..................................................................................... 21 Deep Ecology & Radical Environmental Movement ............................................... 26 Jobs v. Environment .................................................................................................. 31 CHAPTER 2 EARTH FIRST!: THE RISE OF ECO-ACTION ....................................... 35 Cultural Expression ....................................................................................................... 40 Earthen-Spirituality ................................................................................................... 40 Subcultures ................................................................................................................ 44 Repertoire of Political Action ....................................................................................... 48 Image Events ............................................................................................................. 49 Monkeywrenching .................................................................................................... 51 Round River Rendezvous ......................................................................................... 52 Language of Resistance ................................................................................................ 56 Friction .......................................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER 3 NORTH COAST EARTH FIRST!: THE IMPACT OF REVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY .................................................................................... 65 Redwood Encounters .................................................................................................... 68 v Pacific Lumber Company ......................................................................................... 72 Headwaters Campaign .............................................................................................. 77 Direct Action ............................................................................................................. 80 Revolutionary Ecology ................................................................................................. 83 Leadership ................................................................................................................. 86 Breaking with Tradition ............................................................................................ 90 CHAPTER 4 REDWOOD SUMMER: FROM ECOTAGE TO MASS MOVEMENT .. 96 Music ......................................................................................................................... 98 Proliferation ................................................................................................................ 102 Beyond Redwood Summer ......................................................................................... 102 CONCLUSION: THE PROLIFERATION OF ECO-ACTION ..................................... 109 Significance of Earth First! ..................................................................................... 110 Limits of EF! ........................................................................................................... 111 Contributions of NCEF! .......................................................................................... 112 Limits of NCEF! ..................................................................................................... 113 Blue-Green Alliances .................................................................................................. 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 122 vi 1 PREFACE Insights into Earth First! in this thesis are largely informed by my own affinity for radical environmental work in the redwoods of Northern California. My relationships with Earth First! and present day forest defenders as well as warriors for justice have generated the networks from which my deepest learning has been informed. My participation in skill shares, direct actions, and several collective popular education sessions from within these networks has facilitated major sites of knowledge production where this research has been mutually informed/informing of understanding of social and environmental struggles in the redwoods. In addition to my participation in several activities organized by forest defenders, I have also facilitated a number of coyuntur@s. Coyuntur@ means “conjunctural analysis” and is comprised of collective popular education encounters that seek to generate a shared analysis, both historical and present oriented, of the conditions of struggle – political, economic, social, etc. - in any given locale. This method emerges from Latin American social movements and accounts for the particularities of a socio- historic moment in which a social movement finds itself.1 Coyuntur@ attends to the externalities of social movements, but without the structural bias present in Political Process Theory (PPT). Unlike PPT, coyuntur@, does not offer theoretical “causes” for the emergence or success of social movements. Rather, 1 Servicio Jesuita a Refugiados--México, Servicios Informativos Procesados, “Methodology of Coyuntural Analysis, Notebook #1: The Epistemological Review of Coyuntural Analysis,” 7. 2 coyuntur@ seeks to generate a shared analysis, from within social movement, in order to advance strategic interventions by said movement.2 Bevington