|
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group〔(Federal Bureau of Investigation - Congressional Testimony )〕 that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4, 1980〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Radical Environmentalists: Who Are These People And What Are They Doing Here? )〕 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and Ron Kezar.〔Wolke, Howie, (Earth First! A Founder’s Story ), Lowbagger.org〕 There are Earth First! groups in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, Philippines, Czech Republic, India, Mexico, France, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Nigeria, Slovakia, Ireland, Italy, and Spain.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Contacts - Earth First! Action Reports )〕 Inspired by Rachel Carson's ''Silent Spring'', Aldo Leopold's land ethic, and Edward Abbey's ''The Monkey Wrench Gang'', a group of activists composed of environmental activist Dave Foreman, ex-Yippie (Youth International Party) Mike Roselle, Wyoming Wilderness Society representatives Bart Koehler and Howie Wolke and Bureau of Land Management employee Ron Kezar pledged, "No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!" while traveling in Foreman's VW bus from the El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve in northern Mexico to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Provoked by what they considered a sell-out by mainstream environmental advocates during the "RARE II" (the Forest Service's Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) planning process, the activists envisioned a revolutionary movement to set aside multi-million acre ecological preserves all across the United States. Their ideas drew on the main concepts of the new science of conservation biology, which scientists like E.O. Wilson had developed over the past twenty years, but which mainstream environmental groups had been slow to embrace. All of this came together after a grueling hike, as the men headed toward Albuquerque. "Suddenly Foreman called out 'Earth First!' The next thing you know," Wolke says, "Roselle drew a clenched fist logo, passed it up to the front of the van, and there was Earth First!"〔 == Early years == During the group's early years (1979–1986), Earth First! mixed publicity stunts (such as rolling a plastic "crack" down Glen Canyon Dam) with far-reaching wilderness proposals that reportedly went beyond what mainstream environmental groups were willing to advocate (with conservation biology research from a biocentric perspective). The group's proposals were published in a periodical, ''Earth First! The Radical Environmental Journal'', informally known as the ''Earth First! Journal''. Edward Abbey often spoke at early gatherings, and his writings were an inspiration that led him to be revered by the early movement. An annual gathering of the group was known as the Round River Rendezvous, with the name taken from an Ojibwa myth about a continuous river of life flowing into and out of itself and sustaining all relations. The rendezvous is part celebration with art and music, part activist conference with workshops and accounts of past actions. Another project led by the organization at this time was the creation of a tax-deductible fund, then called ''Earth First! Foundation'', which was established with the aim of providing financial support for research, advocacy and education by Earth First! activists. The fund was later renamed to Fund for Wild Nature in 1991. In the spring of 1985, a nationwide call to action in the ''Earth First! Journal'' brought Earth First! members from around the United States to the Willamette National Forest of western Oregon, to take action against Willamette Industries, a logging company. Finding logging road blockades (carried out by Corvallis-based Cathedral Forest Action Group) were offering too short-term a protection, Marylander Ron Huber and Washingtonian Mike Jakubal devised tree sitting as a more effective civil disobedience alternative.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 On May 23, 1985, Mike Jakubal made the first Earth First! tree sit.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 When U.S. Forest Service law enforcement official Steve Slagowski arrived, Mike Roselle, Ron Huber and others were arrested sitting at the base of the tree in support. This first tree sit lasted less than a day—Jakubal came down in the evening to look over the remains of the forest that had been cut down around him that day, and was arrested by a hidden Forest Service officer—but the tree-sitting concept was deemed sound by Earth First! members. Huber and Jakubal, in the company of Mike Roselle, brought the concept to the June 14 Washington EF Rendezvous;〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 on June 23, a convoy of activists arrived at Willamette National Forest, and set up tree platforms〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 in "Squaw/Three timbersale",〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 a location the group thought was threatened with imminent destruction. While at one point, up to a dozen trees were occupied, a July 10 clash〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Earth First! 1985 )〕 took down all the trees with platforms except for Ron Huber's as the other sitters had gone for an overnight meeting elsewhere. Huber remained in his tree, dubbed Yggdrasil, until July 20 when two Linn County sheriff's deputies were lifted in a crane box〔http://www.penbay.org/ef/ronhuber_treesitter1985.jpg〕 and wrestled him from the tree. Later, from about 1987 on, Earth First! became primarily associated with direct action to prevent logging, building of dams, and other forms of development which Earth First! finds may cause destruction of wildlife habitats or the despoliation of wild places. This change in direction attracted many new members to Earth First!, some of whom came from a leftist or anarchist political background or involvement in the counterculture. Dave Foreman has related that this led to the introduction of such activities as a "puke-in" at a shopping mall, a flag burning, heckling of Edward Abbey at a 1987 Earth First! rendezvous, and back-and-forth debates in the ''Earth First! Journal'' on such topics as anarchism, with which Foreman and others did not wish to be associated. Most of the group's older members, including Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, Christopher Manes, George Wuerthner, and ''Earth First! Journal'' editor John Davis, became increasingly uncomfortable with this new direction. This change reportedly led several of the founders to sever their ties to Earth First! in 1990. Many of them went on to launch a new magazine, ''Wild Earth'', and a new environmental group, the Wildlands Project. Roselle, on the other hand, along with activists such as Judi Bari, welcomed the new direct-action and leftist direction of Earth First!. Starting in the mid-1980s, Earth First! began an increasing promotion of and identification with "Deep Ecology", a philosophy put forward by Arne Næss, Bill Devall, and George Sessions, which holds that all forms of life on Earth have equal value in and of themselves, without regard for their utility to human beings. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Earth First!」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|