Earth First! The Politics of Radical Environmentalism(1987)

Earth First! The Politics of Radical Environmentalism is a documentary that traces the rise of the controversial eco-activist group through interviews with its founders—Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, and Howie Wolke—alongside supporters and critics. Emerging in the 1980s, Earth First! pushed environmental activism beyond civil disobedience into ecotage, sabotaging logging equipment and infrastructure to halt deforestation. The movement became polarizing: heroic to some for scaling and occupying 200-foot old-growth trees and tree-spiking to threaten mill machinery, while condemned by others as dangerous extremism. The film captures rare footage of activists in action, presenting multiple perspectives on whether radical tactics serve or undermine the fight to protect America's wilderness. It's an unflinching look at how far some will go for environmental protection.