Monkeywrenching

Monkeywrenching: Ecotage, ecodefense, billboard bandits, desurveying, road reclamation, tree spiking, even fire. All of these terms describe the unlawful sabotage of industrial extraction and development equipment, as a means of striking at the Earth’s destroyers where they commit their crimes and hitting them where they feel it most—in their profit margins.

Monkeywrenching is a step beyond civil disobedience. It is nonviolent, aimed only at inanimate objects. It is one of the last steps in defense of the wild, a deliberate action taken by an Earth defender when almost all other measures have failed.

Although Earth First! is often associated with the practice and mystique of monkeywrenching, the organized elements of the Earth First! movement do not engage in monkeywrenching. Any person openly spouting off about sabotage should be avoided, as they may either be a wingnut or an agent provocateur.

Monkeywrenching is not mindless—targets are carefully picked for their strategic value. There is a time and a place for everything. Knowing when not to engage in sabotage is equally of value. For instance, monkeywrenching during public civil disobedience jeopardizes all who are present.

Although some individual Earth First!ers may be active monkeywrenchers, the Earth First! movement officially neither advocates nor condemns monkeywrenching.

Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (available from the Earth First! Journal) contains detailed information on monkeywrenching techniques as well as discussions of security, safety, strategy and justification. Any potential monkeywrencher would do well to study it carefully before embarking on the clearly illegal and potentially dangerous path of ecotage.

And don’t get caught.  Check out the links in the Security section.