"Ecoterrorism" in the USA and Canada
A grossly misleading and dangerous term that leads to the violent mistreatment of environmental activists and enforces climate denial and delay
The planet is in ecological distress and has been for a while now. Undeniable environmental devastation has raised societal awareness and triggered various forms of public movements organising against environmentally destructive industry groups like oil and timber companies. One such form is radical environmentalism. By engaging in illegal tactics such as civil disobedience, radical environmentalists advocate against the destruction of the environment caused by capitalist development. The disruptive actions of such groups have not harmed any individuals but have cost the affected industries millions of dollars, leading to various frustrated industry groups branding them as “ecoterrorists”. This term is misleading and enforces right-wing views that promote climate denial and delay.
Radical environmentalists believe that it is impossible to create fundamental change when you fight within the same system that creates and benefits from that very environmental destruction. Hence, they use civil disobedience as a tactic to advocate for the protection and preservation of nature (Smith, 2008). Despite its illegal character, there are strict guidelines for their protests, which don’t condone any kind of violence. Still, US government officials (e.g. Senators James McClure and James Inhofe, and Domestic Terrorism Section Chief of the FBI Counterterrorism Division James F. Jarboe) have compared radical environmentalists to extremely violent organisational groups such as Al-Qaeda and anti-abortion murderers (Smith, 2008). This characterisation gave way to the birth of the term “ecoterrorism”, defined as “a crime committed to save nature” (Smith, 2008).
Throughout the post I will quote the article of Rebecca Smith (2008), in which she tells about her experience being arrested and convicted as an “ecoterrorist” for peaceful tree-sitting in the USA (also make sure to check out the 2min video on Annette from the Raging Seattle Grannies for another prime example!! It’s at the end of this post):
“In August of 2002, as I sat high in an old ponderosa pine to protest destructive logging on public lands in the Bitterroot Valley, federal agents began to cut the tree down from the top while I sat below their saw. After sawing off most of the branches, they tied one end of a rope to the trunk of the tree, and tied the other end of the rope to the bumper of a truck eighty feet below us. They would saw off a five foot section of the tree trunk, the truck would pull the rope, and the section of the tree trunk would crash to the ground. When they had cut the trunk of the tree down to where I was sitting, they lifted me into a cherry picker bucket and brought me to the ground.”
In the beginning, “ecoterrorists” could not actually be prosecuted as terrorists in the USA. The USA PATRIOT ACT namely defines terrorism as an act that involves a high risk of death or serious injury to people (Smith, 2008). As this did not apply to “ecoterrorism”, a new legislation was published in 2003, “Animal & Ecological Terrorism Act” (Model Act). This act criminalised actions that obstruct or impede the use of natural or animal resources as well as the funding and support of such actions (Smith, 2008). This meant that simple protest actions such as peaceful tree-sitting or minor property destruction were now classified as “ecoterrorism”, leading to legal sentencing outcomes not matching the conduct (Smith, 2008).
“My companion tree-sitter and I were convicted by a Western Montana jury whose members were all connected to the logging and wood products industry, the U.S. Forest Service, or law enforcement institutions. My sentence for engaging in a peaceful protest on public lands was thirty days locked in a halfway house in Butte, Montana, three years of supervised federal probation, and restitution for the cherry picker and my emergency room hospital bill. The conditions of my probation dictated that I could not enter any National Forest in the entire country unless it was an official wilderness area, and that I could not engage in any protest nor leave the state without permission from the federal government. My tree-sitting companion received a similar punishment. I believed that these were draconian sentences, but was not shocked by them. What I was shocked by was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision on our criminal appeal, which implied that we were “ecoterrorists” for peacefully sitting in trees.”
The term “ecoterrorism” found ground in Canada as well, where four petroleum and natural gas pipeline projects (Trans Mountain, the Coastal GasLink, Keystone XL, and Enbridge Line 3 pipelines) are heavily protested by “ecoterrorists” (Cruickshank, 2020). The protests are held out of concern for the health of the First Nation people living in the pipeline areas, risks of disastrous leakages, dishonouring Indigenous land rights, increased tanker activity disrupting ecosystems, and increased fossil fuel emissions contributing to climate change (Cruickshank, 2020; Kwan, 2021).
The protests included both legal and illegal, but nonetheless harmless, actions, which were branded as “ecoterrorism” by former energy minister Rick Orman. These acts of “terrorism” included sending letters to the pipelines’ 27 insurance companies, as well as obstructing work sites by tree-sitting and chaining oneself to graders and gates, or by hanging from bridges to prevent oil tanker traffic (CBC News, 2018; Mapes, 2020; Kwan, 2021; Ball et al., 2018).
Orman stated the following: “I don’t see anything that is going to stop the environmentalists, other than the threat of enforcing jurisdiction, militarily asserting jurisdiction” (CBC News, 2018). Substituting a few words: ‘environmentalists’ by ‘industry groups’ and ‘the threat of enforcing jurisdiction’ by ‘civil obedience’, shows that this feeling goes both ways.
While industry groups think that their last resort is jurisdiction, radical environmentalists believe that civil disobedience is the only way to stop the destruction. These activists feel like they are left with no choice but to fight for their beliefs and in some cases for their traditional way of life and land rights, because if they would sit back and do nothing, they could lose it all (Kwan, 2021).
“As I sat in the hospital bed, sediment from aggressive post-fire logging continued filling Rye Creek, the Bitterroot River tributary adjacent to the protest site. The bull trout, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act, used to live in Rye Creek. By the time the logging was completed that summer, the sedimentation it caused had obliterated the bull trout’s habitat in Rye Creek. Bull trout can no longer be found in Rye Creek”
Without activists intentionally causing harm to anyone, or intentionally destroying important (public) infrastructure, soliciting military support to address civil disobedience seems excessive to me. In fact, over the past years, stories of excessive use of force by the police towards environmental activists have surged, including instances of holding eyelids open to spray pepper spray directly on their eyeballs; using spotlights to enforce dehydration, sleep deprivation, and starvation upon tree-sitters; and general police harassment (Smith, 2008; Kwan, 2021). Perhaps the inflictors of such force deem it suitable for terrorists, but to me, these are crimes that greatly surpass the peaceful acts of “ecoterrorists”.
“Before they could take me to jail, they had to take me to the hospital. For the previous two weeks, the federal agents had set up a twenty-four-hour, four-person surveillance team—with four high-powered spotlights—to enforce severe dehydration, starvation, and sleep deprivation upon me and my companion tree-sitter in a neighboring tree. When I arrived at the hospital to receive a three-hour intravenous injection of fluids, the police officer handcuffed me to the hospital bed.”
I find it absurd that peaceful protesting is labelled as terrorism. Terrorism is a word used for devastating events like the bombings in Brussels in 2016, or the 9/11 attacks in 2001. It contains the word “terror”, which is inherently associated with danger, death, fear, and immense destruction. It is not a word for someone sitting in a tree tied to another tree with visible plastic ropes. It is not a word for dancing and singing around a fire on Indigenous lands. It is not a word for someone chaining oneself to a gate.
Yes, protest actions frequently occur at the worksites of pipeline projects where these activists are often trespassing. And yes, it causes companies in the industry groups “economic damage” as defined under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 1993 (Smith, 2008). But to compare that economic damage to the damage caused by real terrorist attacks, such as the two above-mentioned, is disrespectful to the victims and all the others that suffered from past terrorist attacks. It quite literally diminishes the severity of the term terror in terrorism. In my opinion, the term terrorism should only ever be used if the action was intended to bring critical, irreversible and endangering harm or destruction to individuals or (public) infrastructure.
Quite frankly, the misleadingness of the term is dangerous. Besides the terrorist classification leading to the disproportionate use of police force and legal prosecution, it also shifts the focus from the reason for the protests to the protesters and the act of protesting itself. Comparing “ecoterrorists” to Al-Qaeda characterises them as ‘nut-jobs’ that pose a threat to society. It puts an image in the public’s head that environmental activists are violent, societal outcasts that should not be listened to or believed. Taking Smith’s example, rather than focusing on the fact that the bull trout can no longer be found in Rye Creek, the focus comes to lie on the removal of an “ecoterrorist” in a valley in Montana.
The term has thus become a useful tool for politicians to weaken the effects of protesting and suppress the pushback to environmentally destructive actions and awareness calls to society. Using it, instead, supports and promotes climate action delay and even denial. And in a time when human impacts are undeniably the driving force of climate change, we can simply not afford to delay tackling environmentally harmful practices…
“As one U.S. Senator stated at an “ecoterrorism” hearing: “[i]n our current state of fear, it is easy to get headlines by using the term ‘terrorism.’ But sometimes, a criminal is just a criminal.” Indeed, if a pejorative label is necessary for law-breaking activists, let it be law-breakers, criminals, trespassers, vandals, saboteurs, or arsonists, but not terrorists.”
Well, thanks for making it to the end of this rant on “ecoterrorism”. Most of the input for this post comes from a uni assignment I did for my Ethics class. It got me really worked up back then and reading it now just triggers me all over again ahha.
Also, I wanna be like Annette and join the Seattle Raging Grannies when I am old. What a badass!!!!!!!!!!!!
Content tip
This article by The Climate Psychologists about dealing with climate denial is great and super relevant for understanding the various societal responses to climate change science and policies. It also inspired the last two paragraphs of this blog post!
https://substack.com/inbox/post/90500121
References
Ball, D. P., Cruickshank, A., Winter, J. (2018, July 5). Greenpeace anti-pipeline protesters say the bridge disruption demonstration was a ‘success’. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/07/04/rcmp-begin-to-cut-down-suspended-anti-tanker-protesters-from-bridge.html
Bonds-Liptay, S. (2017). Valve Turner Annette Klapstein faces trial in Minnesota for shutting down Enbridge’s Line 4 and 67 pipelines [Video]. Vimeo. vimeo.com/218311560
CBC News. (2018). Troops will be needed to get Trans Mountain built, says former Alberta energy minister. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/former-alberta-energy-minister-says-call-in-the-troops-trans-mountain-1.4621835
Cruickshank, A. (2020). Trans Mountain, Coastal GasLink, Keystone XL: where things stand with Canada’s pipeline projects. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/trans-mountain-coastal-gaslink-keystone-xl-canada-pipeline-projects/
Kwan, B. (2021). Indigenous activists fight British Columbia’s pipelines to the last mile. Crosscut. https://crosscut.com/environment/2021/03/indigenous-activists-fight-british-columbias-pipelines-last-mile
Mapes, L. V. (2020). Professor in a tree over Trans Mountain Pipelines vows not to come down. Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/ professor-in-a-tree-over-transmountain-pipeline-vows-not-to-come-down/
Smith, R. (2008). '"Ecoterorrism"? A Critical Analysis of the Vilification of Radical Environmental Activists as Terrorists.' Environmental Law 38, (2), pp. 537-576.