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Earth First!ers believe in " Deep Ecology," a philosophy put forward by Arne Naess, Bill Devall , and George Sessions , which holds that all forms of life on Earth have equal value in and of themselves, without regard for their utility to human beings. Earth First!ers use this philosophy to justify an a ecocentric view of the world in which intrisic values for organisms and ecosystems outweigh their resource values. The motto of Earth First! is "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!"

Action within the Earth First! movement is also informed by anarchist political philosophy. Rotation of the primary media organ among publishers in differing bioregions, an aversion of organized leadership or administrative structure, and the use of rhetoric by so-called members identifying Earth First! as a movement rather than an organization, all of these activities characterize a decentralized, locally-informed activism based on communitarian ethics .

In the field, individual citizens and small groups form the nuclei for grassroots political action s, which may take the form of legal actions--i.e. protestProtest expressed relatively overt reaction to events or situations: sometimes in favour, more often opposed. Protesters may organize a protest as a way of publicly and forcefully making their opinions heard in an attempt to influence public opinion or gos, timber sale appeal s, and educational campaigns--or civil disobedienceThe term civil disobedience characterises the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence. Civil disobedience has been used in struggles in India in the fight ag-- tree sittingTree sitting is a form of environmentalist civil disobedience in which a protester sits in a tree, usually on a small platform built for the purpose, to protect it from being cut down (speculating that loggers will not endanger human lives by cutting an o, roadThis page is related to transport you may be looking for the 2002 Bollywood movie Road''. A road is a strip of land, smoothed or otherwise prepared to allow easier travel, connecting two or more destinations. In the context of railways, a road is a single blockadeA blockade is an effort usually (but not always, see below) at sea, to prevent supplies from reaching the enemy. A blockade is also the attritional aspect of a siege, with the besiegers preventing food supplies from reaching the besieged. If the siege lass, and sabotageDisambiguation This article is about Sabotage the destructive action. The term sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album ( Sabotage), a Alfred Hitchcock film ( Sabotage), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. Sabotage is a deliberat - called " ecotageEcotage is sabotage motivated by a desire or need to protect ecological integrity, including the prevention of ecocide. It is a term that was coined to counter the term " eco-terrorism". Ecotage is also referred to as ecodefense or monkeywrenching. Accord" by some advocates when it is done as a form of ecodefenseEcodefense: The Ethics of Monkeywrenching is a book edited by Dave Foreman, published by Abbzug Press, Third Edition. Forward by Edward Abbey. CONTENTS Introduction to the Third Edition FORWARD! by Edward Abbey CHAPTER 1 STRATEGIC MONKEYWRENCHING CHAPTER. Often, disruptive direct action is used primarily as a stalling tactic, to prevent environmental destruction while lawsuits (which take more time) can secure the long-term victories.

A very popular combination of tactics is road blockades, activists locking themselves to heavy equipment to immobilize it, tree-sitting to prevent logging, and sometimes sabotage of machinery.

Although Earth First! was at first known for the practice of tree-spiking and monkey-wrenching, which can be potentially injurious, in 1990 Judi Bari led Earth First! in the Northern California and Southern Oregon region to renounce these practices, calling them counterproductive to an effort to form a coalition with workers and small logging businesses to defeat large-scale corporate logging in Northern California.

In 1990 a bomb was placed in Judi Bari's car, crippling her, and leading to false charges by police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she was responsible for the bomb. Bari died in 1997, but her federal lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland California police resulted in a 2002 jury verdict exonerating her and awarding her estate to fellow Earth First!er Darryl Cherney , a total of $4.4 million. Eighty percent of the damages were awarded for violation of the two Earth First! leaders' First Amendment rights to organize politically in defense of the environment. Juror Mary Nunn told reporters the jury unanimously agreed with Bari's and Cherney's claims that the FBI and Oakland Police attempted to frame the pair and falsely smeared them in the media as a way to neutralize them and Earth First! by making the public believe they were terrorists who used bombs. Earth First! has never advocated the use of bombs or explosives in any way, due to the risk of harming living things.

Some critics of the movement still call EF! activity eco-terrorism, though Earth First! proponents say that the term more accurately describes the people who destroy the environment. In response to being labeled terrorists, some have adopted the neologism terrist instead.