Can Baking Soda Save the Environment?
The group maintains a list of the more than 100 companies it says it has forced to stop doing business with Huntingdon. How do they do it? As long as oil companies continue to drill, construction companies continue to build and loggers continue to log, these activists likely will stick around and continue to fight their war. Based on the recent fires in Seattle, it doesn’t look as though eco-terror is losing any steam. Unlike extreme animal and environmental activists in the United States, their counterparts in Europe do not shy away from physical violence.
ELF’s Web site claims that members are anonymous even to each other. So even when people are found and arrested, attacks don’t decline because the groups are dependent only on each individual’s fervent commitment to protecting nature, not on the leadership of any one person. Although people outside of the movement aren’t certain of how eco-terror groups organize and carry out attacks, experts think the groups comprise a series of cells located across the country that recruit participants for specific activities and then disband.
But groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) don’t stop there. Their members vandalize things like animal testing facilities, meat packing plants, slaughterhouses and mink farms, causing millions of dollars in damage and disrupting operations. ALF migrated across the Atlantic in 1979, and in the last several years, has torched a McDonald’s in Arizona, burned down a primate facility in New Mexico and raided a fur farm in Oregon, among other activities. The U.S.-based ALF originated in England, the offshoot of a 1960s group known as the Hunt Saboteurs Association formed to protest fox hunts. In 1972, some members started the Band of Mercy to undertake more violent actions such as firebombing.
They fought hard and often broke the law. They fear that the violent extremism displayed by groups like ELF could create a backlash against the entire environmental movement and make it harder for more mainstream groups to effect change. But some environmental groups disagree. Eco-terrorists argue that they are not the enemy; the enemy is all the people they are fighting. Pretty bad, according to the FBI, who considers them a top priority. After all, they don’t seek to intentionally harm anyone, even those they see as “the system.” And how bad can they be if they’re defending pristine waters, open prairies and cute little bunnies? Bad enough to be charged with federal crimes in some cases and sentenced to decades in prison — if they can be caught.
Eco-terrorists, or “ecoteurs,” as they’re sometimes known, profess to value all life, so they don’t strike to kill, but instead use scare tactics like arson to discourage their enemies. SUVs, construction equipment and genetically engineered crops also are likely targets. The Seattle subdivision, for example, was built near a stream that supports endangered salmon, and some opponents worried the homes would pollute the creek and nearby wetlands. Suburban developments like the one in Seattle are common targets because of the land they consume and the nearby ecosystems they threaten. While they’re certainly no al-Qaida, extreme activists acting on behalf of animals or the environment have committed hundreds of crimes over the past two decades and inflicted more than $100 million worth of damage in the U.S.
On the next page, you’ll learn more about the organization and tactics of eco-terror groups and why they’re so difficult to track down. So while they may have caused some serious financial damage when they torched the Seattle homes, no one was hurt in the fires because the houses were unoccupied. Although eco-terrorists engage in a range of destructive actions, their belief that all life is sacred has thus far kept them from seriously injuring anyone.
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