In his book, The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism, historian Keith Makoto Woodhouse traces the history of radical environmentalism from the 1960s through the 1990s. He focuses on how the cultural and political conditions of this era created a space for the radical environmentalist group Earth First! to gain philosophical ground in America.
One of Woodhouse’s major contributions in this book is describing the development and circulation of Earth First!’s organizing philosophy of “ecocentrism,” also called “deep ecology” or “biocentrism.” According to Woodhouse, Earth First! radicals believed that “human beings and human society held no greater moral value than did nonhuman species and ecological systems.” They argued that modern development and cultural progress threatened the existence of natural resources, and ultimately human survival. As such, Earth First! believed that the only way to save humanity was by prioritizing nature above human consumption and development. Unfortunately, Woodhouse argues, this belief often ignored the social costs of its proposals—costs often borne by the most vulnerable members of society—and this ultimately contributed to the group’s splintering and decreased effectiveness.
Four common themes emerge across the book.
The radical environmental movement was never tied to a specific political party.
Earth First! identified as having anarchist roots, with loyalty to the nonhuman world. This meant that collaborations with political groups were flexible and not limited to partisan politics. For example, they officially organized in 1979 in response to the Sierra Club’s failed leadership in the 1970s. The lobbyist group refused to address the American cultural and political narrative that celebrated progress and industrialization over increasingly prominent environmental concerns such as natural resource depletion, consumerism, or overpopulation. Earth First! was willing to take a stand on these issues, even when mainstream environmental leaders wouldn’t.
In the early 1980s, conservative market capitalists and EarthFirst! shared distrust over the federal government’s oversight of grazing on Western public lands. Together, they argued for market competition over federal agency oversight of grazing permits. Though the partnership was limited given the conservative tendency to support private business and industry, EarthFirst! consistently demonstrated a willingness to build alliances with any party that benefited its longer environmental vision.
Earth First!’s three core tenants included: (1) a belief in ecocentrism where environmental objects such as rivers should have legal sovereignty independent from their value as a human resource; (2) a romantic vision of “pristine” wilderness where human absence marked healthy landscapes, even if that meant rewilding previously developed areas; and (3) direct interventions of symbolic civil disobedience (“ecotage”) over the democratic processes