From: EcoNet via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.environment,ne.politics
Subject: "Wise Use" -- "The Scent of Opportunity" (1 of 3 -- Preface)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d,talk.environment
Date: 23 Jan 1993 04:09:52 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Keywords: environment

[From EcoNet publiceye Conference]
[Also Posted to ACTIV-L and misc.activism.progressive (by Somebody Else)]

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=> From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)

THE SCENT OF OPPORTUNITY:

A Survey of the 
Wise Use/Property Rights Movement
in New England 

by William Kevin Burke

December 12, 1992

prepared for Political Research Associates 

* Contents

This report is provided in three parts:

  Part 1 -- Preface (Preface by Chip Berlet)
  Part 2 -- The Report (by William Kevin Burke)
            Introduction
            Background on the Wise Use Movement
            The Big North Forests
            Situation by State
            Conclusions
  Part 3 -- Bibliography (by Jym St. Pierre)

* Preface (by Chip Berlet)

When William Kevin Burke first came to use the library at
Political Research Associates in 1987 he had built a solid
reputation as a freelance journalist, with a particular interest
in environmental issues.  At Political Research Associates, we
had an interest in the emerging right-wing anti-environmental
movement which spawned the Wise Use movement.  This interest
reflected our eleven years as a research center that monitors
and publishes on the political right wing.  On both a
professional and a personal level, the match between Political
Research Associates and Bill Burke was a good one, and we have
worked together ever since to uncover the activities of the
fast-growing anti-environmental movement.  This report is one
result of that collaboration.

In 1988, as communist governments were beginning to crumble
in Europe, conservative magazines began to refer to
environmentalists as "watermelons": green on the outside, but
red on the inside.  Environmental activists across the nation
began reporting an increase in incidents of surveillance and
harassment.  In the late summer of 1988, Greenpeace Magazine
asked Political Research Associates to investigate these reports
and prepare an article on right-wing involvement in the
anti-environmental movement.

By 1989, PRA had become an informal clearinghouse for an ad-hoc
network of groups and individuals sharing information on Wise
Use and other aspects of the anti-environmental backlash.
Sheila O'Donnell, a licensed private investigator at Ace
Investigations in California specializing in cases involving
activists, began to document incidents of physical assaults on
environmentalists.  Brian Glick, a civil liberties attorney and
author of War at Home, a book on how activists can resist
political harassment, provided valuable historical analysis of
the emerging anti- environmental movement.  In early 1989,
Seattle-based author Dan Junas, working on a book for PRA about
far-right theocrat Rev. Sun Myung Moon, discovered that Ron
Arnold, organizer of the first national Wise Use conference in
August 1988, had deep and longstanding ties to Moon's political
operations. In July 1989, Canadian journalist Howard Goldenthal
sent us his article exposing Arnold as "an American right-wing
ideologue...on an all-out crusade to thwart the environmentalist
movement in Canada."

By the fall of 1990, when Greenpeace Magazine published my
article on attacks on environmentalists, many other researchers
were investigating the growing conservative backlash against the
environmental movement.  Journalist Margaret Knox in Missoula,
Montana and Eve Pell of the Center for Investigative Reporting
wrote early and excellent reports on anti-environmentalism.
Colleen McCrory, a Canadian activist, emerged as the leading
source of information on Wise Use in western Canada, where it is
called the SHARE movement.  Sara Diamond wrote about the free
market environmentalism campaign. Johan Carlisle reported on
right-wing propaganda campaigns against environmentalism, and
media coverage of the ecology movement.  California activist
Mickey Dulas was among the first to report on intimidation by
off-road vehicle groups such as the Sahara Club USA, Inc., of
Granada Hills, California.  The Data Center in Oakland,
California has consistently provided background information on
corporations and political trends involved in Wise Use and other
anti-ecology campaigns.  These researchers, and many others,
developed the supporting research that has begun to draw
attention to the little-known but dangerous work of the Wise Use
Movement.

In August 1991, I joined a group of researchers concerned about
right-wing anti-environmentalism and attacks on environmental
activists.  We met in Seattle to share information and talk
about the lack of media interest in the growth of the
anti-environmental movement.  While a few excellent articles had
appeared by then, most people (even most environmentalists)
still were not familiar with the movement, and those who were
often did not appreciate its clout.  We discussed strategies to
increase coverage of the issue.  Fortunately, however, the issue
was already gaining steam among other journalists.  Within a few
months, Wise Use and the anti-environmental backlash finally
became a major media topic.

PRA continues to serve as a clearinghouse for information about
the right-wing anti-environmental movement.  As a part of that
effort, we are proud to have sponsored William Kevin Burke's
important research, "The Scent of Opportunity: A Survey of the
Wise Use/Property Rights Movement in New England."

     Chip Berlet, Analyst
     Political Research Associates
     Cambridge, MA 

================================================================
Copyright 1992, PRA.  Electronic network posting of unmodified
text is encouraged.  Printing of copies is expressly forbidden.
See order information and address at end of text.  PRA is an
independent non-profit institute.  Donations are tax-deductible.
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This report is available in print form from PRA.

For information about this and other PRA publications write:

Political Research Associates
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