Backfire, change the local activist land-
scape? What grew from the ashes?
It may no longer be so radical, but
Eugene’s environmentalist community
continues to nurture seeds sown at the
peak of the movement in the late ’90s.
Volunteers with the Northwest Ecosystem
Survey Team (NEST), a group formed out
of the Fall Creek forest defense campaign,
still scout for red tree vole nests in an
effort to battle timber sales on public
lands. Cascadia Wildlands Project, a forest
advocacy group founded in 1997 by James
Johnston, regularly brings legal challenges
to federal logging projects; Jim Flynn is
CWP board president, and another former
EF!J co-editor, Josh Laughlin, is director.
The eco-anarchist TV show Cascadia
Alive! ended in 2004, but Tim Lewis is
currently working to archive the shows for
the UO library, and his documentaries of
the Warner Creek blockade and the WTO
riots are now available on DVD. Green
Anarchy magazine, launched around 2001
by Robin Terranova and other local radi-
cals, still publishes out of Eugene, while
Earth First! Journal, which was headquar-
tered locally from 1993 to 2001, has
moved to Tuscon, Ariz. The journal strug-
gles to stay afloat, with about one-third the
subscribers it had in 1997.
In the Whiteaker neighborhood, eco-
anarchist hangout Icky’s Teahouse is gone,
but Tiny Tavern carries on. The Ant Farm,
an activist crash-pad, has folded, but the
Shamrock House remains, with its “Free
Wall” covered in anarchist art. The
Jawbreaker gallery, founded by Warner
Creek activist Stella Lee Anderson, still
hosts alternative art shows, and the daf-
fodil bulbs Kari Johnson planted in the
shape of an anarchy symbol on a 4th
Avenue lawn more than a decade ago still
appear every spring. Food Not Lawns, the
urban gardening movement founded by
local activists Heather Coburn and Tobias
Policha in 1999, has now gone national;
Coburn recently published a book about it
under the name H.C. Flores.
And though the arsonists who set fire to
Willamette National Forest in 1991 have
yet to be caught, the trees of Warner Creek
still stand. Tim Ingalsbee, the “godfather”
of the mid-1990s campaign against sal-
vage logging, perseveres in his effort to
get the site permanently protected as a
research area.
Much like the Warner Creek salvage
controversy, Operation Backfire illuminat-
ed two very different ways of viewing a
burnt landscape: as a disaster to be cleaned
up and salvaged, or as a natural cleansing,
providing nutrients and light for rebirth.
The bust seems to have dampened local
eco-radicalism, stalled ELF actions, weak-
ened Earth First!, and possibly even
chilled progressive activism of all kinds.
But Eugene remains a hub of eco-activity,
and as sure as wildfires will continue to
blaze through forests, stoking controver-
sies in their wake, environmentalists will
keep battling the forces of planetary
destruction, their tactics evolving with the
shifting political landscape.
ew
Care about teens?
Here’s your chance to show it!
NUESTRO LUGAR/
OUR PLACE
Fishing for
the perfect
gift idea?
TEEN CENTER
NEED VOLUNTEERS!!!
New Volunteer Training
January 6 & 7 • 10am-4pm
LEAD is a non-profit leadership program run by and
for low-income teens. We are opening the Nuestro
Lugar/Our Place Teen Center for low-income, multi-
cultural, and/or at-risk teens. Our focus is leader-
ship, multiculturalism, personal growth, empower-
ment, and social change. Please let us know about
your language/special accommodation needs.
Everybody Loves
KoHo Bucks!
(available in any amount)
2101 Bailey Hill Rd.
681-9335 • kohobistro.com
To register or for more information:
Contact Stina at 342-TEEN
or stina@leadteen.com
www.leadteen.com
Nuestro Lugar/Our Place Teen Center is a program of LEAD.
Check online for web extras: “Is eco-sabotage
terrorism?” and “Thoughts from the trenches.”
DECEMBER 21, 2006 13