On Thursday the 25th I attend the showing of a Documentary named “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”, directed by Marshal Curry. There as well were two guest speakers, Denny Jackman, from the board of the Central Valley Farmland Trust and of the Farmland Working Group and Brad Barker, Conservation Chair of the Yokuts Group of the Sierra Club. The film was a documentation of radical environmental activists group that had taken some very extreme measures aimed at environmental offenders in Oregon, Eugene and other locations during the late 1990’s. The name of the group was referred to as ELF – the Earth Liberation Front. Most of the group had been arrested; sixteen in total had been brought down by a member named Jake Ferguson. Ferguson had given up all of his group members up to law enforcement in exchange for freedom. The group of protesters had been connected to many crimes which were all acts of arson and vandalism. ELF had pointed all their efforts towards any organization who they did not agree with in their concern for the environment. The acts consisted of burning down the establishments of several Rangers stations in Oregon Eugene, Cavell West a government program, vandalism in the Seattle (peaceful) protest, act on the Swanson Lumber Jack Corporation, among a few.
The film was well done in that it gave a fair depiction of most sides of the story. One of the accounts the film follows is of Daniel McGowan who was sentence to seven years in prison. He received the controversial “terrorism enhancement” sentence which makes his sentence harsher than an average sentence. The film suggests that the public may fail to hear certain messages of environmental activists wish to spread. It raises serious questions about the best ways for those groups to be heard. This becomes controversial because of the direction ELF had taken. The documentary stated that it was