Ecotage
Ecotage refers to sabotage tactics employed by radical environmentalists aimed at halting projects deemed environmentally harmful. Advocates of ecotage argue that these extreme actions are sometimes necessary to draw attention to ecological issues, especially when traditional forms of protest seem ineffective. The movement gained traction in the 1970s, influenced by the publication of *Ecotage!* by Environmental Action and Edward Abbey's novel *The Monkey Wrench Gang*, which depicted ecoguerrillas disrupting destructive development. Notable figures in this movement, like Dave Foreman, have published guides on ecotage methods, asserting that such actions are acts of self-defense in the face of environmental degradation.
Ecoteurs, as these activists are known, often target logging, strip-mining, and other industrial operations by employing tactics like tree spiking and damaging machinery. They critique mainstream environmental organizations for being too passive and compromising with industrial interests. Despite some internal debate about the efficacy and ethics of their methods, ecotage persists into the twenty-first century, with some activists continuing to endorse radical measures to protect the environment. The FBI and industry leaders have responded to ecotage with crackdowns and rewards for information leading to the arrest of ecoteurs.
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Ecotage
DEFINITION: Sabotage tactics used by radical environmentalists to stop projects they perceive as ecologically destructive
Many mainstream environmentalists believe that the actions of those who engage in so-called ecotage have alienated some people who would otherwise support the environmentalist cause, but others assert that such extreme acts are sometimes necessary to call attention to the need to defend nature.
In 1972, the group Environmental Action published the handbook Ecotage!, which compiled ideas about how to sabotage environmentally destructive projects. Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), featuring a small group of ecoguerrillas who destroy construction equipment to stop development in the southwestern United States, inspired Dave Foreman and others to start the radical environmental movement Earth First! In 1985, Foreman published Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, a manual of ecotage methods and information on related issues such as safety and security. In the early 1990s, Foreman wrote that “those willing to commit ecotage are needed today as never before.” Several other environmental advocates, such as Greenwar International, have also promoted ecotage.
The early proponents of ecotage, known as ecoteurs, were dismayed by industrial development of wilderness areas that the government refused to protect. Frustrated that civil disobedience did not achieve their goals, ecoteurs decided to preserve the environment by illegally damaging machinery used to degrade wilderness areas. Such militant acts of destruction often impeded future development efforts and reduced industrialists’ profits.
Many ecoteurs, including Foreman, had belonged to mainstream environmental groups during the 1960s and 1970s but had become disillusioned by the dominance of conservative political leaders in these groups during the 1980s. Ecoteurs are often critical of environmentalists in such organizations as the Sierra Club, asserting that they are passive, ignore opportunities to preserve the wilderness, and appease industrialists and governmental agencies by sacrificing the environment. Ecoteurs denounce environmentalists with anthropocentric attitudes who view the environment as a source of production and resources to fulfill human needs.
Most ecoteurs consider themselves a symbiotic part of the environment and justify their bold, destructive conduct as acts of self-defense. “It is time to act heroically and admittedly illegally in defense of the wild,” Foreman stated, “to put a monkeywrench into the gears of the machinery destroying natural diversity.” He stressed that ecotage “is sabotage, not terrorism, because it’s about property destruction. It’s saying, I’m operating as part of the wilderness, defending myself.”
Sometimes calling themselves “ecowarriors,” ecoteurs strategically select their targets for ecotage in their efforts to disrupt environmentally harmful development. Many have focused on obstructing logging and strip-mining operations. Common monkeywrenching procedures include tree spiking, in which large nails are driven into trees in old-growth forests to deter loggers. Other tactics include pouring sand into the gas tanks of trucks and bulldozers, as well as slashing tires. Ecoteurs have also pulled up survey stakes, cut power lines, blockaded roads, stolen machinery parts, and ruined tools. Some ecoteurs have damaged offices belonging to the US Forest Service to protest logging in national forests, and others have sprayed baby seals with dye so their fur would be unusable for coats. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and industrial leaders have offered rewards for the arrest and conviction of ecoteurs.
During the 1990s, many of the people in the Earth First! movement came to believe that ecotage often does more to ostracize people than to protect the environment, and they reassessed their protest tactics. Columns in the Earth First! Journal during that period discussed individuals’ ecotage efforts, but Earth First!ers disagreed about the role of ecotage in the environmental movement. While some believed all ecotage should be ceased, others argued that only certain acts of sabotage should be curtailed—those that might result in injuries to loggers or miners. Although some ecoteurs began to question their tactics in the 1990s, ecotage continued into the twenty-first century. In fact, in 2005, three members of the Earth Liberation Front were arrested for "ecoterrorism." Though the radicalization of ecoteurs has been somewhat tempered, there remains some activists that endorse extreme measures to protect the environment.
Bibliography
Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975. Print.
Arridge, A. S. "Should We Blow Up a Pipeline? Ecotage as Other Defense." Environmental Ethics, vol. 45, no. 4, Winter 2023, pp. 403-425, doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics202382863. Accessed 16 July 2024.
"Environmental Radicalism Through Ecotage." The Climate Change Review, 31 Oct. 2022, www.theclimatechangereview.com/post/environmental-radicalism-through-ecotage. Accessed 16 July 2024.
Foreman, Dave, and Bill Haywood, eds. Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching. 3rd ed. Chico: Abbzug, 2002. Print.
Scarce, Rik. Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement. Updated ed. Walnut Creek: Left Coast, 2006. Print.
Sterba, James P., ed. Earth Ethics: Introductory Readings on Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print.
Sumner, David Thomas, and Lisa M. Weidman. "Eco-Terrorism or Eco-Tage: An Argument for the Proper Frame." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature & Environment 20.4 (2013): 855–76. Humanities International Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.