Editing Earth First! (section)

== From 1990–present ==
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2015}}
Since 1990, action within the Earth First movement has become increasingly influenced by [[anarchist]] [[political philosophy]]. This change brought a rotation of the primary media organ in differing regions,{{clarify|date=June 2015}},<ref>Christopher Manes (1991). ''Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization''. Little, Brown and Company.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2754|title=Earth First! The Next Generation|date=2 September 1996}}</ref> an aversion to organized leadership or administrative structure, and a new trend of identifying Earth First as a mainstream movement rather than an organization. In 1992, Earth First's push toward the mainstream movement led to the creation of an offshoot group called [[Earth Liberation Front]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://portland.fbi.gov/pressrel/2002/testimon.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030323213904/http://portland.fbi.gov/pressrel/2002/testimon.htm|title=Provencio Release|archive-date=23 March 2003|publisher=fbi.gov}}</ref> The Earth Liberation Front was formally introduced during the 1992 "Earth First! Round River Rendezvous", where young activists debated the effectiveness of civil disobedience activism tactics in light of the ever-increasing destruction of the planet by human activity. Elders of the Earth First movement gave their blessing to this newly formed strike team known as ELF.<ref>''Burning Rage of a Dying Planet''. by Craig Rosebraugh. Lantern Books, New York. p. 20</ref> ELF became the extremists of the environmental movement, just as the Earth First movement itself had been when it was created a decade earlier.

Earth First protests commonly involved occupations of forested timber sale areas and other threatened natural areas. In these protests, dozens of people physically locked their bodies to trees, bulldozers, and desks using specially created lock boxes (metal tubes reinforced with rebar) through which protesters threaded their arms,<ref name="historyisaweapon.com">{{cite web|url=http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lockbox.html|title=Locking Down with Lockboxes - Crimethinc.|work=historyisaweapon.com}}</ref><ref name="issuu.com">{{cite web|url=https://issuu.com/earthfirstjournal/docs/dam_3rd_edition/115|title=Earth First! Direct Action Manual |edition= 3rd |work=Issuu|date=2 February 2015 }}</ref> or using bicycle U-locks in order to lock their necks to other objects.

=== HeadWaters ===
The HeadWaters campaign in Northern California aimed to protect the last [[old-growth redwood]] forests, Headwaters Grove (now known as [[Headwaters Forest Reserve]]) {{convert|3,000|acres}} of forest from logging by the [[Pacific Lumber Company]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Brower|first=David|date=1996-09-15|title=Forest on the Verge|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/15/opinion/forest-on-the-verge.html|access-date=2021-04-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> [[Charles Hurwitz]] and his company Maxxam, Inc. purchased Pacific Lumber Company in 1985, and planned to liquidate its assets including these [[old-growth forest]]s.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lindsey|first=Robert|last2=|first2=|date=1988-03-02|title=Ancient Redwoods Fall to a Wall Street Takeover|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/02/us/ancient-redwoods-fall-to-a-wall-street-takeover.html|access-date=2021-04-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=1985-12-06|title=Maxxam Buys 60% Of Pacific Lumber|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/06/business/maxxam-buys-60-of-pacific-lumber.html|access-date=2021-04-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Reiterman|first=Tim|date=2005-02-21|title=A Titan of Logging Threatens to Topple|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-feb-21-me-timber21-story.html|access-date=2021-04-17|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}</ref>

In May 1987, sawmill worker George Alexander lost several teeth and fractured his jaw when the saw he was operating struck an 11-inch spike and fragmented, sending shrapnel into his face. This incident, which occurred at the Cloverdale Louisiana-Pacific mill in northern California, is alleged to have been caused by tree-spiking by Earth First! members, but no conclusive evidence has been found to prove this.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-16-mn-9417-story.html | title=Booby-Trapped Tree Was Felled in Area Known for Bizarre Protests | website=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=16 May 1987 }}</ref>

In 1997, as part of the ongoing HeadWaters Redwoods protests, activists locked themselves to a redwood stump which was carried into California Congressman [[Frank Riggs]]' office in [[Eureka, California|Eureka]].<ref>{{cite web|date=June 9, 1998|title=Acts of Ecoterrorism by Radical Environmental Organizations|url=http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju59927.000/hju59927_0.htm|url-status=live|work=[[United States House of Representatives]]|publisher=House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Federal Government|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010109113200/http://commdocs.house.gov:80/committees/judiciary/hju59927.000/hju59927_0.htm |archive-date=2001-01-09 }}</ref> HeadWaters was an ongoing protest lasting over a decade, and ending in 2009.<ref>{{cite web|author=Rogers|first=Paul|date=8 March 2009|title=A decade after Headwaters deal, truce comes to Northern California redwood country|url=http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_11844764|url-status=live|website=The Mercury News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104150546/http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_11844764 |archive-date=2012-01-04 }}</ref>

The 1990s lawsuit, Headwaters Forest Defense vs. Humboldt County, charged that police officers were using excessive force, including chemical weapons.<ref name=":2">{{cite web|last=Wilson|first=Nicholas|date=August 22, 1998|title=Pepper Spray Trial Begins|url=http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9808a/pepperspray1a.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011115021119/http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9808a/pepperspray1a.html|archive-date=2001-11-15|access-date=2015-10-16|website=Albion Monitor}}</ref>

The first acknowledged death of an Earth First activist occurred on September 18, 1998, in Northern California's Redwood forests. Earth First activist [[Death of David Chain|David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain]] attempted to protect the forest by trespassing inside an active logging site. During the logging operations, a large redwood was cut down by a Pacific Lumber logger and fell upon Chain, who died instantly.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Rosenfeld|first=Seth|date=1999-03-14|title=Death and anguish in the redwood wars|url=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Death-and-anguish-in-the-redwood-wars-3309094.php|access-date=2021-04-17|website=SFGATE|language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Cove-Mallard Timber ===
Between 1992 and 1998 took place the largest timber sale in [[United States Forest Service]] history, the Cove-Mallard timber sale of 6,000 acres in [[Idaho]] near the [[Nez Perce National Forest]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|last=Ashton|first=Linda|date=1995-01-01|title='Unwelcome Mat' Is Out for Earth Firsters in Some Idaho Towns : Environment: The negative mood is one of the legacies of a persistent campaign to keep saws and bulldozers out of a 6,000-acre timber sale area on national forest land.|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-01-01-me-15242-story.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-17|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126064005/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-01-01-me-15242-story.html |archive-date=2020-11-26 }}</ref> The group of EarthFirst activists focused on this area were called the "Cove-Mallard Coalition".<ref name=":3" />

With the aid of a nearby landowner, a former land developer turned activist, Earth First occupied the forest. As a result, Earth First succeeded in saving most of the threatened wilderness area. Over 350 people from 12 countries were arrested and the project was reduced from its initial plan of 200 clear-cuts and the construction of seven new roads, to 37 clear-cuts and two new roads.
In June 1993, Earth First halted the construction of the Noble Road by erecting elaborate multi-layered barricades, which included U.S. Forest Service vehicles. These barricades were constructed in one night, during which activists traveled 17 miles through the mountains dodging law enforcement patrols who had been informed of the planned demonstration. The first tripod lockdowns occurred at this incident, which involved three 30 foot logs, tied together and placed upright, with an activist tied to a platform between them 20 feet in the air.<ref name="hcn.org">{{cite web|last=Freeman|first=Ross|date=March 6, 1995|title=Logging protesters say they won't give up|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/30/857|url-status=live|work=hcn.org|publisher=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924025338/http://www.hcn.org/issues/30/857 |archive-date=2015-09-24 }}</ref> The tripod was placed over trenches in which four activists were buried in quick-drying cement. Two additional activists used U-locks to lock their necks to the front axles of responding vehicles. U.S. Forest Service shot at activists and raided the land with a SWAT team armed with M-16s.<ref>{{cite web|last=Olsen|first=Ken|date=March 1, 1994|title=Earth First!ers experience Idaho-style justice|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/6/166|url-status=live|work=hcn.org|publisher=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402153346/http://www.hcn.org/issues/6/166 |archive-date=2015-04-02 }}</ref> 27 activists were arrested.

[[William C. Rodgers|William "Avalon" Rodgers]], a member of the Earth Liberation Front, who alongside the rest of his ELF group was also arrested and were serving life sentences in federal prison for crimes that involved property damage.<ref>{{cite web|title=Earth Liberation Front|url=http://www.targetofopportunity.com/elf.htm|work=targetofopportunity.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Bernton|first=Hal|date=January 21, 2006|title=Prosecutors portray close-knit arson team|url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20060121&slug=ecoindictments21m|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-17|website=archive.seattletimes.com|publisher=The Seattle Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417152053/https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20060121&slug=ecoindictments21m |archive-date=2021-04-17 }}</ref> Rodgers was a long term Earth First activist, and one of the occupation activists of Free Cascadia/Warner Creek Oregon and the Cove/Mallard Idaho protests for years and one of four who constantly camped out in snow-caves monitoring the only logging of Noble Road in the winter of January to March 1995 in 12-foot deep snow and sub-zero temps.<ref>TreeHuggers: Victory, Defeat & Renewal in the Northwest Ancient Forest Campaign. by Kathie Durbin. The Mountaineers Press Seattle. p270.</ref>

=== Free Cascadia ===
During Free Cascadia, a mass occupation organized by Earth First at the Warner Creek timber sale in Oregon, 50-plus activists continuously occupied the burnt forested mountains of Oregon for a year in 1994-1995. They endured bad weather and law enforcement raids. Their barricades which were dug in reinforced trenches, forts with watchtowers, and tree-sits enabled a constant occupation of the land while lawsuits and political actions locally and in Washington D.C., ultimately saved the land.<ref>{{cite web|last=Davis|first=Tony|date=September 2, 1996|title=Last line of defense, civil disobedience and protest slowdown 'lawless logging'|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2747|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926073356/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/89/2747 |archive-date=2013-09-26 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Elderkin|first=Susan|date=September 2, 1996|title=What a difference a year makes|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2748|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101003034817/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/89/2748 |archive-date=2010-10-03 }}</ref>  Warner Creek is often seen an example of how the Earth First movement was successful, though most Earth First occupations of timber sales failed.

In the summer of 1995, environmental activists attempted to occupy the old-growth timber sale area of Sugarloaf Mountain in Southern Oregon. The Sugarloaf Mountain had been in legal battles for over a decade when the "Rider from Hell" was added in committee to the congressional Crime Bill of 1994, which mandated the logging of thousands of acres of old-growth forest.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=September 1996|title=Logging Without Laws: How the Timber Rider Passed Congress|url=http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol03/kirchner.html|journal=Environmental Review Newsletter|publisher=Environmental Review Educational Services|volume=3|issue=9}}</ref> The United States Forest Service declared an [[exclusionary zone]] of 30 square miles in southern Oregon and arrested anyone in the area, including a local woman walking her dog.<ref>{{cite web|last=Davis|first=Tony|date=September 2, 1996|title=When the crackdown came|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2749|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160119150331/http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2749 |archive-date=2016-01-19 }}</ref> Over 100 federal agents, supported by helicopters and the elite US Army Ranger-trained law enforcement squad known as "Camo-Feddies," arrested hundreds of activists. The environmental activists engaged at all levels of protest with numerous public and illegal demonstrations by Earth First, protests at government offices locally and in Washington D.C., tree-sits in active logging zones, and even an attempted helicopter pad lock-down to immobilize logging helicopters.  One tree from Sugarloaf timber sale, which was a four day long tree-sit by a local father and son Earth First team, required 9 log trucks to carry it out in sections.<ref>TreeHuggers: Victory, Defeat & Renewal in the Northwest Ancient Forest Campaign. by Kathie Durbin. The Mountaineers Press Seattle. p264-276.</ref> This tree was estimated to be over 400 years old and took twenty-seven minutes to cut down using a 7-foot chainsaw.

Earth First responded by immediately occupying the nearby timber sale known as China Left in early October 1995 to defend the old-growth forest and the last wild salmon spawning grounds in Oregon. EF activists used dragon lock-boxes on both ends of the valley's only road to protect the area<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/archive/blm/Medford%20BLM/chinaleft.html|title=UW.Org: China Left Timber Sale, June 4, 1997|work=umpqua-watersheds.org}}</ref>{{clarify|date=June 2015}}.<ref name="issuu.com"/><ref>{{cite web|last=Giller|first=Chip|date=November 13, 1995|title=Clinton says: Stop logging|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/47/1451|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101050300/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/47/1451 |archive-date=2009-11-01 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2014/01/31/florida-sheriffs-train-in-defeating-sleeping-dragon-lockboxes-using-jackhammers-chainsaws/|title=Florida Sheriffs Train in Defeating "Sleeping Dragon" Lockboxes Using Jackhammers, Chainsaws - Earth First! Newswire|work=Earth First! Newswire}}</ref> A female Earth First activist known as "Ocean" held the road for a day as police attempted to remove this human-and-cement blockade, allowing Earth First to dig in farther down the valley. This was the start of two-year-long occupation protest, during which a pickup truck was turned into a lock box to block the only bridge to the valley.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chilson|first=Peter|date=July 7, 1997|title=In Oregon, tension over coho and trees|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/105/3290|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029010505/http://www.hcn.org/issues/105/3290 |archive-date=2015-10-29 }}</ref>

=== Judi Bari car bombing ===
In 1990, a [[bomb]] exploded in the car of Earth First activist [[Judi Bari]], injuring Bari and fellow activist [[Darryl Cherney]]. Bari and Cherney were arrested due to suspicions by the police and [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] that they had been transporting a bomb that had accidentally exploded.<ref name="SFGate">{{cite web|title=Earth First activists win case / FBI, cops must pay $4.4 million for actions after car bombing|url=http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Earth-First-activists-win-case-FBI-cops-must-2829885.php|work=SFGate|date=11 June 2002}}</ref> Bari contended that extremists opposed to her pro-environmental actions had placed the bomb in her car in order to kill her. The case against them was eventually dropped due to lack of evidence.<ref>{{cite news
| last = Guthmann
| first = Edward
| title = Is the biograph
| date = February 1, 2005
| url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/01/DDG3HB2CFV1.DTL
| access-date = January 8, 2009
| work=The San Francisco Chronicle}}</ref>

Bari died of cancer in 1997, but her federal lawsuit against the FBI and [[Oakland, California]] police resulted in a 2002 jury verdict awarding her estate and Darryl Cherney a total of $4.4 million.<ref name="lawcom">{{cite web| url=https://www.democracynow.org/2002/6/12/justice_delayed_but_not_denied_renowned |title=Justice Delayed But Not Denied: Renowned Environmental Leaders Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney Win a Multi-Million Dollar Verdict in Civil Rights Suit Against the FBI|website=[[Democracy Now!]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=March 25, 2012|title='Who Bombed Judi Bari?' documentary seeks an answer|work=The Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2012-mar-25-la-ca-earth-first-doc-20120325-story.html}}</ref>

A documentary movie about the court case, entitled ''The Forest for the Trees'', was released in 2006. It was directed by Bernadine Mellis, whose father is one of the lawyers featured in the documentary. The documentary ''[[Who Bombed Judi Bari|Who Bombed Judi Bari?]]'', directed by Mary Liz Thomson, was released in 2012. The filmmakers are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading the arrest of the bomber.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/27/judi_bari_revisited_new_film_exposes| title=Judi Bari Revisited: New Film Exposes FBI Coverup of 1990 Car Bombing of California Environmentalist| publisher=Democracy Now!| date=March 27, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2012-dec-06-la-et-mn-who-bombed-judi-barr-capsule-20121207-story.html| author=Sheri Linden| title=Review: 'Who Bombed Judi Bari?' wants to know| newspaper=Los Angeles Times| date=December 6, 2012}}</ref>

On March 21, 2011, a U.S. federal judge in California ordered the FBI to preserve evidence related to the car bombing. The FBI was planning to destroy all evidence in the case.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/22/headlines#16|title=Headlines for March 22, 2011|work=Democracy Now!}}</ref> The bombing remains unsolved.<ref name="lawcom" />