New book explores Oregon's role in early aughts ecoterrorism
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Photo/rendering: Courtesy of Nathan Fitch and Penguin Random House
The rise and fall of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an environmental movement that grew out of Oregon, is chronicled in author Matthew Wolfe's new book, "Fires in the Night," which comes out Tuesday.
The big picture: Wolfe, who has written about American sub-cultures for years, details how the underground group became frustrated with mainstream environmentalism and embraced arson and sabotage in the '90s and early aughts as a way to stop what they saw as unchecked ecological destruction.
- The ELF gained dedicated members like Kevin Tubbs and Stanislas Meyerhoff, Oregonians who ultimately served lengthy prison sentences for acts they viewed as necessary to protect old-growth forests and combat climate change.
What he's saying: "This story has the arc of a classical tragedy," Wolfe told Axios. "People coming together to do this ambitiously righteous thing, then collapsing and destroying themselves through hubris."
- "Fires in the Night" dives into more than just the series of arsons the group committed across the West.
- It's also about post 9/11 politics, capitalism and how a renewed appetite for direct action is fueling newer climate groups like the Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement today.
Zoom in: The book starts in Eugene. There, the Earth First! Journal and the University of Oregon spawned a generation of activists who believed mainstream environmental groups had become too willing to compromise with polluters and politicians, Wolfe said.
- Activists routinely clashed with the timber industry over the fate of the Willamette National Forest. Many staged sit-ins, blockades and other forms of "monkeywrenching" — like pouring sugar into bulldozer tanks or spiking trees — to deter logging.
Others took it a step further.
- Wolfe's reporting features interviews with former members who splintered off to form the ELF after deciding non-violent measures weren't stopping deforestation.
- They wanted to hit the wallet of companies they blamed for ecological destruction. The group set fire to fleets of SUVs at car dealerships and, most notably, burned down buildings at the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado to protest its expansion.
- At one point, the FBI listed the ELF as the biggest, most active terrorist group in the U.S. until the movement collapsed under the weight of arrests, infighting and distrust sown from some members wearing wires.
"If you feel like you can't make change within the system, out of desperation, you're gonna try something else, or you're gonna give up," Wolfe said.
If you go: Wolfe will discuss the book in conversation with journalist Leah Sottile at Powell's Books on July 1 at 7pm.