A Litany of Environmental Activism

This is a random listing of major incidents involving members of Earth First!:

1981: Founder Dave Foreman and others unfurled a 300-foot roll of plastic sheeting down the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona. From a distance, the dam appeared to have cracked.

1983: In a remote part of the Siskiyou National Forest near Grants Pass, Ore., Foreman and his cohorts set up a roadblock to prevent a construction company from building a path to ancient woodlands that had never been logged. When the logs were removed, Foreman stood in the way.

1990: Earth First! members were among 1,200 environmentalists who staged protests on Wall Street and in the financial district of San Francisco, complaining that corporations had used Earth Day as a marketing tool without doing enough to protect the environment. More than 250 people were arrested.

1990 also was the year of the “Redwood Summer.” Up to 1,500 activists gathered in California to chain themselves to equipment, block logging roads and suspend themselves by wires above state highways.

1991: Foreman pleaded guilty to conspiring to sabotage nuclear facilities in Arizona, California and Colorado.

1992: Opposed to three planned tollways in Orange County, activists held protests at transportation agency meetings. Wearing masks depicting Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren, they passed out “Bren bucks” and shouted: “I’m Donald Bren, and I own all of you!” At another meeting, they dumped cow dung in the aisle.

1993: About 80 activists stormed and occupied the office of the president of the University of Arizona, protesting the construction of telescopes on Mount Graham. Twenty-three members of Earth First! were arrested.