Terrorists are not friends of the Earth

Terrorists are not friends of the Earth

Sunday, May 27, 2001

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Man's assault on the environment just escalated -- right here in our back yard and, seemingly, at the hands of those who profess to cherish it.

The twin pre-dawn arsons last week at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture and a poplar tree farm in northwest Oregon -- coming on the heels of millions of dollars of damage to public research institutions and private corporations -- argue for an expansion of domestic terrorism laws.

Call this one the green version of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, which the FBI has used since 1992 to bring to justice those in the animal rights movement who resort to violence. The law requires restitution for the loss of farm income or the costs of repeating research that has been interrupted or destroyed. If someone dies in an attack, the penalty can be as severe as life in prison.

By substituting the word plant for the word animal, Congress can give federal authorities a significant tool to investigate and prosecute people whose malicious and purposeless acts have become part of the problem, not the solution.

"Environmental activists" is a blatant misnomer for lawbreakers -- at this point suspicion focuses on a shadowy group called the Earth Liberation Front -- who endanger lives and destroy public and private property under the cover of darkness. They should instead become publicly involved in the worthy discussion about the intersection, or intervention, of humans and nature.The debate is more essential now than ever, with science's impressive and daunting ability to alter the genetic makeup of crops from corn to trees. It was the subject of transgenic poplar trees, it's believed, that attracted the ELF to the Center for Urban Horticulture, though only 80 poplar plants (of thousands being researched there) have genes from other poplar trees inserted into them.

Beyond stupid, the arsonists' acts were exceedingly careless and, if ELF's hand was at work here, undermine the very educational purposes its members would appear to endorse. The collateral damage at CUH included 20 percent of the books in the Elisabeth C. Miller Horticultural Library. It also destroyed or diminished research on endangered species, wetlands rehabilitation, home gardening and forest regeneration after the Mount St. Helens eruption.

Whoever is found to be responsible for burning books and trees is no friend of the environment; the admonition that we should all "walk gently on the planet" includes them as well.

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