Monkey wrenches

Just as we take up the topic of (re-) wilding in Environmental Ethics, it's reported that the founder of the Rewilding Institute has died.

David Foreman, who as the co-founder of the environmental group Earth First! urged his followers to sabotage bulldozers, slash logging-truck tires and topple high-voltage power lines, earning him a reputation as a visionary, a rabble-rouser, a prankster and, even among some fellow activists, a domestic terrorist, died on Sept. 19 at his home in Albuquerque. He was 75...

[Earth First!'s] members drew inspiration from the writer Edward Abbey, whose 1975 novel, “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” depicts a group of eco-warriors who attack increasingly grandiose targets — including the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona — in the name of the environment... Earth First! and Mr. Foreman were not just more strident than the mainstream. They advocated a different philosophy, known as deep ecology, which holds that nature has inherent value, not just in its utility to people. Their vision included returning vast swaths of land to nature, ripping out any trace of human intervention.

Coincidentally, I heard myself in class last time recalling (not endorsing) Edward Abbey's Monkeywrench Gang shenanigans, and its "incendiary call to protect the American wilderness" at all costs, legal or not. “My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don’t know anything else worth saving. That's simple, right?” (continues)

==

David Foreman, Hard-Line Environmentalist, Dies at 75

David Foreman, who as the co-founder of the environmental group Earth First! urged his followers to sabotage bulldozers, slash logging-truck tires and topple high-voltage power lines, earning him a reputation as a visionary, a rabble-rouser, a prankster and, even among some fellow activists, a domestic terrorist, died on Sept. 19 at his home in Albuquerque. He was 75.

John Davis, the executive director of the Rewilding Institute, a research and advocacy group that Mr. Foreman founded in 2003, said the cause was interstitial lung disease.

Mr. Foreman was a leading figure among a generation of activists who in the late 1970s grew frustrated with what they saw as the compromises and corporate coziness of many mainstream environmental organizations, including the Wilderness Society, where he worked as a lobbyist.

In 1980, during a hike through the Mexican desert, Mr. Foreman and four friends developed the idea for a grass-roots movement built around the aggressive protection of the environment for its own sake. He came up with the name, Earth First!, and its motto, "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth."
…nyt

==

We are deeply saddened to report that Dave Foreman passed away this evening peacefully, at home. The founder of The Rewilding Institute who coined the now ubiquitous name for a movement to protect and restore wild nature, Rewilding. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/l2WNAk0COY

— Rewilding Institute (@Rewilding) September 20, 2022