Doug Tompkins, founder of North Face and Esprit, has been instrumental in creating two huge nature reserves in Patagonia. Photograph: Aaron Black/Getty Images
It has become something of a mantra within thesustainabilitymovement that innovations in technology can save the world. But rather than liberating us, Doug Tompkins, the cofounder of retail brands The North Face and Esprit, believes technology has enslaved us and is destroying the very health of the planet on which all species depend.
Tompkins, 70 has used his enormous wealth from selling both companies to preserve more land than any other individual in history, spending more than £200m buying over two million acres of wilderness in Argentina and Chile.
He challenges the view that technology is extending democracy, arguing that it is concentrating even more power in the hands of a tiny elite. What troubles him the most is that the very social and environmental movements that should be challenging the destructive nature of mega-technologies, have instead fallen under their spell.
This film is a pre-released version of the documentary “Earth First!: The Politics of Radical Environmentalism” produced by Chris Manes. Its an examination of Earth First! in the early days, filmed at, and around the time of, the 1987 Grand Canyon Round River Rendezvous–a definitive work of that era. While Manes has not been present in the Earth First! movement for well over a decade, he was featured recently in the “Where Are They Now” section of theEarth First! Journal 30th Anniversary edition.
The documentary features live footage of tree spiking, monkey wrenching, early blockades and tree sits. And along with totally 80’s hair styles under camo hats and eco-militancy expressed in Sesame Street-sounding sing-alongs, it’s also chock-full of powerful interviews: Earth First! co-founders Nancy Morton, Howie Wolke, Mike Roselle and Dave Foreman; former EF! Journal editor John Davis; prominent voice for deep ecology, author Bill Devall (who passed on last year); and voices from government agencies, the timber industry and mainstream groups like the Sierra Club.
This version of the film was posted on Youtube summer 2011 by longtime EF! activist and movement documentarian Andy Caffrey. Since this summer, Caffrey has addedover 50 historical EF! videos online via his Youtube channel. He’s also running for Congress in 2012. And while we could more-or-less give a shit about who gets elected, we’re glad to see some of these videos back in circulatation amidst his campaign endeavors.
While Earth First! is most commonly associated with the direct action to defend of the wild from corporations and governments, the fight to liberate urban land (often from those same corporations and governments) is not to be dismissed. In fact, there is a case to be made that changing the way we view the immediate land we live on is a first and necessary step towards redefining our relationship to the living world around us. And if we are aiming to turn this whole ecocidal system on its head—as we must—then we would do well to pay close attention to the foreclosure crisis that is poised to implode industrial capitalism here in the US.
In this light, the group Take Back the Land is biocentric and deeply ecological at its core.
This case was made at this years Earth First! Winter Rendezvous at a workshop lead by co-founder of that group, Max Rameau. As powerful as his words were, action always speaks louder:
May 9, 2011: Take Back the Land- Rochester liberates home, moves Lennon back into house By: Max Rameau (originally posted here.)
Catherine Lennon, the Rochester, NY grandmother who was evicted from her home by a SWAT team , has been moved back into her home on Monday May 9, 2011 by Take Back the Land- Rochester.
After her husband died of cancer in 2008, the Lennon family fell behind on her mortgage. Attempts to renegotiate the mortgage were stonewalled by Fannie Mae, Catherine Lennon made local and national news by defending her home from eviction for two weeks with help from neighbors and Take Back the Land- Rochester. While Fannie Mae refused to help Catherine Lennon, they gladly accepted over $90 billion in taxpayer bailout money through the TARP program.
On March 28, 2011, Rochester police executed the eviction with 2 dozen or so police and by arresting seven people, including a 70 year old neighbor still in her pajamas. Charges against those arrested are being dropped in exchange for 8 hours of community service. The Lennon-Griffin family of 11 has been dispersed with grandchildren living with friends and family and Catherine living in a local Motel.
After the eviction, Lennon was called the ‘Rosa Parks of the foreclosure crisis‘ for her heroic stand against the bank. Offers of assistance came from US Representative Louise Slaughter (NY-28), Senator Kirsten Gillabrand and Senator Chuck Schumer. Negotiations with Fannie Mae broke down after they made bad faith demands.
“We believe it is immoral for Fannie Mae to leave another home vacant in our community,” argued Ryan Acuff of Take Back the Land- Rochester, “while Catherine Lennon depletes her life savings staying in a motel. We must show at least as much mercy towards Catherine Lennon as we have towards Bank of America, Citibank and Fannie Mae.”
Solidarity with immigrants against borders is one of the most practical and relevant places for the biocentrist—deep ecologist, eco-anarchist, Earth First!er.. or whatever you may call yourself—to present our vision of the world beyond civilization. The border is not just a line between two places. Its a scar on the earth, and in our lives, where empire and ecocide have met. Millions of people in North America feels this environmental and social tragedy in a deep and direct way.
The reality of this has been close to home for us here at the Earth First! Journal/Newswire, from life in Arizona in the midst of the SB 1070 law and the militarized border lands, to our new office in the south, which is now embroiled in the battles surrounding anti-immigrant legislation. Georgia became the first state following the footsteps of Arizona’s “Papers Please” law—HB 87, they are only awaiting the Governor to sign it into law—and, despite mass opposition, Florida is not far behind, with SB 2040.
"We will not comply," blockade at Sheriff Arpaio's Maricopa County Jail in Arizona after SB1070 goes into effect, July 2010
Arbitrary borders divided by walls and high-tech surveillance are becoming one of the most drastic symbols of literal human division and disconnect from the wild world around them. The same principles of rewilding that apply to keeping healthy, biodiverse habitats also apply to the re-wilding the free spirit of our species. What borders walls do to the endangered Jaguar, immigration laws due to our own wild spirits.
The past two issues of the EF! Journal have run excellent articles on borders, immigration, biocentrism and ecological resistance. Check ‘em out below.. May they assist in fueling the flames of immigrant solidarity and rebellion. For freedom of movement to all species!
The Capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida is occupied by immigrants, predominantly from indigenous campesino communities in Central America.
(Also, don’t miss the coming issue of the EF! Journal, this June, for a fresh new article on the Center for Biological Diversity’s effort to defend Jaguars from extinction in the US by the racist border wall.)
Simultaneous protests for immigrant farmworker solidarity take also place this week. Here, at a grand opening of Grocery chain Public in Lake Worth, FL, new home to the Earth First! Journal.
Catherine Lennon, the Rochester, NY grandmother who was evicted from her home by a SWAT team , has been moved back into her home on Monday May 9, 2011 by Take Back the Land- Rochester.
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