by Ella Gouran

Earth First! The Journal of Ecological Resistance, September 23, 1987

Earth First! (EF!) is one of the best-known radical environmental movements. Their bold, disruptive, and mediagenic civil disobedience actions brought public attention to a wide range of environmental concerns in the 1980s and 1990s and since. Founded in 1980 by activists who broke with mainstream environmental organizations dedicated to lobbying, Earth First! introduced radical tactics and radical ideas: nature has intrinsic value; humans are not the only organisms that matter.

Earth First! is not an organization. There is no headquarters, no officers. Instead, it is a movement network loosely held together by by local Earth First! groups and the Earth First! The Journal of Ecological Resistance. The EF! movement originated in the West, and, as our maps show, in its early years most of its protests and actions concentrated in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado and other western states. EF! activists earned headlines with direct action intended to block destructive logging, mining, dams, and building in environmentally sensitive areas. The image at right records a 1987 protest against clearcutting in the California redwoods. EF!ers took to the trees with six members scaling large redwoods then setting up camp in their branches equipped with supplies and banners of protest. They managed to stop the logging for one week and also managed to escape without arrest.

Monkeywrenching was another tactic associated with EF!. The term comes from Edward Abby’s 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, a fictional tale of dam-destroying environmentalists that inspired many spirited EF! direct action protests. EF! monkeywrenching actions included pulling up survey stakes, tree-spiking, and equipment destruction. Sensational acts of vandalism earned the most attention (especially from law enforcement) but were a small part of the EF! repertoire. As our research shows, the loose knit movement staged hundreds of protests in its first decade including marches, picketing, road blockades, tree-sittings, street-theatre, occupations of federal and Forest Service offices, and confrontations with logging companies.

The maps, graphs, and timeline below are based on reports published in the monthly Earth First! Journal. They track the first eight years of the movement, chronicling EF! actions while revealing the historical geography of this influential movement. Note the western state concentration throughout the decade. While EF! networks and actions spread to the Midwest and East Coast and also abroad after 1984, California and other western states saw by far the largest concentration of activism.

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Sources and methods: The five hundred events listed here were recorded in issues of Earth First! The Journal of Ecological Resistance. Research and data development by Ella Gouran