Earth First! The Politics of Radical Environmentalism by Chris Manes is an examination of Earth First!, filmed at and around the time of the 1987 Grand Canyon Round River Rendezvous. Footage from this film appeared on TV in many programs including an episode of 60 Minutes about Earth First!.
Today, we are experiencing a resurgence of difficult tactical and strategic questions that have been forced to the forefront of activists’ and citizens’ consciousness, both by the urgency of the climate crisis and by increasing authoritarian repression enacted by corporations and states. From StopCopCity in the Weelaunee Forest, to the Amazon, to Sweden, to India, and almost everywhere, people are putting their bodies on the line in direct action, resisting ecocide and oppression.
Tactics range from mass protest, to non-violent civil disobedience, to sabotage, to violence against self and even against others. Questions around what is non-violence and to whom, what is the difference between law and justice and for whom, and how our choices of tactics will influence public opinion, either growing our movements or playing into the hands of the powerful who continue to use the word “terrorist” to justify repression and to scare citizens.
None of these questions are easy, and while certain strategic norms may be consistent guides, the answers are often highly contextual. During these times where such questions of tactics are so urgent, even making their way into popular fiction and film, it can help to look back on past movements for lessons. In my own experience of organized non-violent civil disobedience, we have often looked back to the civil rights movement in the US, to women’s suffrage movements, and to decolonization movements for guiding strategy.
This film profiles EarthFirst!, the Sierra Club, forestry departments, law enforcement, logging corporations, and citizens during the late 1980s in the US. For me, watching was a great way to look back, but not very far back, and to find lessons and questions that are still urgent today. I was born in the 1980s, and it feels eerie that the environmental struggle has so many similarities today as to when I was only just born.
Crucially missing from most of what is covered in this film, and still missing in much environmentalist organizing today, is a connection to positive vision for what we do want, as opposed to only what we don’t want. Positive vision is a strategic essential to building effective and sustained mass movements. A note of hope is that vision has become more prominent in today’s organizing, though it still has to be taken much more seriously.
The second missing piece I notice from this film, and from much environmental organizing to this day, is solidarity and coalition building with labor. The strike is one of the most powerful forms of direct action, especially en masse as a confrontation with production, which must be part of our strategy. Again, here is where positive vision towards new economic and social relations must intersect with positive ecological vision. The hopeful point here is that many environmental movements have made significant progress in intersecting with decolonization, feminist, and racial struggles. We should continue to coalesce around positive vision to attract and sustain a diverse mass movement and deepen our solidarity with intersectional struggles.
If you decide to watch this film, please join in the conversation on Z’s community forum to share some lessons, impressions, and questions that resonated with you. By widely sharing strategy towards mutual aims in solidarity with each other – we will change everything.
☮ Alexandria

For some more thinking about tactics, non-violence, sabotage, and strategy, here’s a few recent articles:
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/escalating-save-the-people-and-planet-tactics/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/go-big-or-go-home-whats-at-stake-with-xr-uks-big-one/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/defending-the-weelaunee-forest/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sabotage-why-when-how/
https://znetwork.org/zvideo/what-is-legitimate-protest-generation-change/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hope-amid-climate-chaos-a-conversation-with-rebecca-solnit/