About Everglades Earth First!

Everglades Earth First!, originally called Jeaga Earth First!, formed several years ago over the threat of a biotechnology invasion in South Florida. In 2006, the radical environmental movement met in Palm Beach County for the annual Earth First! Organizers’ Conference and Winter Rendezvous. The gathering was not only an amazing tale in the history of the movement, but it also became a part of an amazing story of victory over the sprawling corporate biotech nightmare, 2000-acre Scripps Research Park that was lurking in the former orange grove next door to our campsite.

“They didn’t look like ‘mainstream citizens’…I guess it’s some sort of an anti-technology backlash, anti-globalization. I don’t think that’s a very prevalent attitude in this county.” Bevin Beaudet, Palm Beach County’s previous ‘Scripps Program Manager’, now head of Water Utilities. Quote is from USA Today, 1/4/05, following one of the first EF! actions in Palm Beach County, against the defeated Scripps Biotech Research Park.

EF! has since grown in the Everglades, taking on other development issues, restoration politics and energy infrastructure projects. Our actions have centered around the local battle against Florida Power & Light’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), a 3800 megawatt gas-fired power plant in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). This would be the third largest fossil fuel power plant in the U.S., pumping out over 10 million tons of Greenhouse gases, sitting in the middle of a giant scandal-ridden rock mine, on the edge of an ‘Everglades Restoration’ (CERP) reservoir, 1000 feet from the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The plant will store 12.6 millions gallons of diesel on site to be burned as ‘back-up’ fuel. It also requires a deep-well injection system dumping over 7 billion gallons of the plant’s wastewater underground every year and a new high-pressure gas pipeline running 34 miles through land of the Dupuis and J.W. Corbett Wildlife Areas, both these components of the plant have still not received permits. Yet it is under construction as you read this, despite the growing public outrage, pending lawsuits and the lack of essential permits.

About Earth First! the movement

Earth First! (EF!) is an international movement composed of small, bioregionally-based groups. Earth First!ers take it upon ourselves to become intimately familiar with the ecology of our area and the most immediate and serious threats to it. We apply "direct pressure" to stop the bleeding, with a combination of education, litigation, and creative civil disobedience. Many EF!ers experience both the joy of the wild and the anguish of losing it so acutely that they feel isolated and alone before coming together s a group. Nothing is more empowering or more fulfilling than standing defiant in creative consort with other like-hearted people. Dare to love that much!

Earth First! is different from other environmental groups. First of all, Earth First! (EF!) is not an organization, but a movement. There are no "members" of Earth First!, only Earth First!ers. It is a belief in biocentrism, that life of the Earth comes first, and a practice of putting our beliefs into action. Our actions are tied to Deep Ecology, the spiritual and visceral recognition of the intrinsic, sacred value of every living thing.

We have succeeded in cases where other environmental groups had given up, and have drawn public attention to the crises facing the natural world, because Earth First! takes on decidedly different tactics towards environmental issues. We believe in using all the tools in the tool box, ranging from grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process to civil disobedience and monkeywrenching. Our front-line, direct action approach to protecting wilderness gets results.

While there is broad diversity within Earth First! from animal rights vegans to wilderness hunting guides, from monkeywrenchers to careful followers of Gandhi, from whiskey-drinking backwoods riffraff to thoughtful philosophers, from misanthropes to humanists, there is agreement on one thing, the need for action!

Anyone can be an Earth First!er and anyone can form their own EF! group. Earth First! is a priority, not an organization. The only "leaders" are those temporarily working the hardest and taking the most risks. New ideas, strategies and crucial initiative come from individuals, and all decisions are made within affinity groups based on preferred tactics. EF! is as much an extended family as an environmental movement, developing the integrity and skills for a new/old way of living with the land.

The best way to learn more about the Earth First! Movement is to come to a gathering or find other EarthFirst!ers in your area! Or just start takin' action!