Confessions of an Eco-Warrior
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''Confessions of an Eco-Warrior'' is a book written in 1991 by
Dave Foreman William David Foreman (October 18, 1946 – September 19, 2022) was an American environmentalist and author, he was a co-founder of Earth First! and a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement. Early life and education William ...
.


About

Dave Foreman was the
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
lobbyist for The Wilderness Society in the 1970s. Disillusioned by the lack of progress in safeguarding the environment in the United States, particularly after a wilderness inventory by the
United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
known as RARE II (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation), he was a co-founder of the environmental organization known as
Earth First! Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that originated in the Southwestern United States. It was founded in 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and Ron Kezar. Today there are Earth First! groups around ...
(EF) in the 1980s. EF originally mixed innovative publicity, such as rolling a plastic "crack" down
Glen Canyon Dam Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, United States, near the town of Page, Arizona, Page. The high dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powe ...
, with far-reaching
wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
proposals that went far beyond what the mainstream environmental groups were willing to advocate, and with
conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...
research from a biocentric perspective. Later however, after about 1987, EF became primarily associated with non-violent
direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
activities. Foreman took his inspiration for Earth First! from
Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include ''Desert Solit ...
's book ''
The Monkey Wrench Gang ''The Monkey Wrench Gang'' is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1975. Abbey's most famous work of fiction, the novel concerns the use of sabotage to protest environmentally damaging activities in the ...
'' which is a fictional account of a gang of four individuals who take on a pointless yet deeply symbolic effort to destroy and thus halt the machines of human expansion and putative "progress" in the American Southwest. In 1989 Foreman was implicated in the FBI conspiracy known as THERMCON wherein four activists in
Prescott, Arizona Prescott ( ) is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2020 Census, the city's population was 45,827. The city is the county seat of Yavapai County. In 1864, Prescott was designated as the capital of the Arizona T ...
, who were only peripherally connected with EF, were enticed by undercover FBI agent Michael Fain (alias Mike Tait) who talked them into the destruction of a power line in the State of Arizona. Foreman himself wasn't involved, however he was arrested and indicted along with the four. His book ''Confessions of an Eco-Warrior'' is partly an autobiographical account of RARE II and his disillusionment with the mainstream
environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...
, the early years of Earth First!, the FBI entrapment, and his ultimate disillusionment with what Earth First! became. It is also partly a statement of his views on wilderness and the state of the environmental movement. In the book he expressed his view that Earth First!, by 1990, had largely run its course, and was starting to attract new members who took the group in a more countercultural and left-wing direction than he was comfortable associating with. The defining moments for Foreman, according to the book, were when some activists under the Earth First! banner held a "puke-in" at a shopping mall, when Edward Abbey was subjected to harsh criticism and heckling by some younger newcomers to EF when he attended the 1987 EF rendezvous (Foreman and the other old guard of EF, who revered Abbey, were horrified that he would receive that sort of treatment at an EF gathering), and when some Earth First! funds were diverted to launch a punk-style zine called "Live Wild or Die", which among other things espoused
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
and attacked Foreman's and Abbey's views on some controversial issues then being debated within EF. While Foreman and most of the rest of the old guard of EF severed their ties to the group in 1990, he remains an environmental activist. At the time ''Confessions'' was published, he had just launched a new magazine, ''
Wild Earth ''Wild Earth'' was an environmentalist magazine published in the United States by the Wildlands Project between 1991 and 2004. The magazine was based in Richmond, Vermont. History and profile ''Wild Earth'' came about when the original ''Earth ...
'' (intended as a replacement for the 1980s-era ''Earth First! Journal''), and was soon to launch a new environmental group,
The Wildlands Project The Wildlands Network (formerly known as “Wildlands Project") was created in 1991 to stem the tide of species extinctions that was being recorded across North America. Evidence that such extinctions were often exacerbated by a lack of habitat c ...
.


Publication

*''Confessions of an Eco-Warrior'' (1991), Crown Publishing Group.


References

{{Reflist 1991 non-fiction books 1991 in the environment Environmental non-fiction books