Photos of “Eco-terrorists”
May 9th, 2008 by Will Potter
Deb over at Invisible Voices sent a link to a wonderful photography project by Christopher LaMarca called “Forest Defenders.”
I have been photographing these activists and loggers since the summer of 2003. My connection to this project revolves around the passion and endless work that consumes these people who live in the back-country for months at a time; and who are willing to sacrifice their comforts’ to stand up for their beliefs.
Although these activists are often seen as radicals or eco-terrorists, little has been documented about their activities outside of these stereotypes. These stunning landscapes will continue to be decimated due to political pressure and lack of education, these are some of last truly wild places left in America.
The photographs are stunning. Please take a look at some of the people that are being labeled “eco-terrorists.”
Those pictures really make the destruction of our forests hit home.
The “Men” who do this to our world-who order it, finance it, then profit further from it- they are not “God-fearing” family men the Right Wing propaganda would have us believe. I was raised in those Post War Republican Christian families who started the drift from the hard work, farm based ethos of their own parents- I watched MY parents abandon my Grandparent’s conservation and reverence for the earth and Creation…to choose Greed, Speed, Chemicals, Poison and Haste and Detachment from all thought or tenderness….they handed our nation over, they surrendered all protections, fell asleep at the gates, Hell, they abandoned their posts and their own families to go Fortune-hunting- of course they werent looking to the earth’s needs- But WHY- I keep asking myself what makes them so blind to the losses WE can all weep for- Why are they doing this, forsaking all that is real, for the Death in its place?
And then, of course, thank God for these “terrorists” (!) who do what is needed to protect our country, our families, America’s resources from the raiders, is what I meant, since the prior generation- our Parents, politicians, Captains of Industry etc- were actually doing the OPPOSITE of what God, their Bibles, their own belief systems would tell them to do- Moderation, respect for resources, Stewardship- things our Grandparents and Agrarian societies knew were needed to ensure survival….American Ethics! This is what we long for - In what twisted world is that called Terrorism!? How is someone who asks for that a Terrorist? Wow.