Kuipers (Burning Rainbow Farm
) reports on “eco-tage” or eco-sabotage, groups via the story of Rob Coronado, one of the movement’s most active members. After an early victory sinking whaling ships in Iceland, Coronado mounted a series of “actions” over the years, breaking into fur farms and animal-testing laboratories, destroying cages and research documents, and often committing arson. The book provides an exhaustive account of Rod’s path through the fringe environmental movement, his evolving political philosophy and his deepening identification with his Yaqui ancestral beliefs, which embrace the environment as an integral element of human life. Simultaneously, it traces how Coronado became “isolated and paranoid” as the FBI intensified its manhunt and eventually arrested the man they characterized as a terrorist. Kuipers’s fascination for his subject veers dangerously close to awe at times, but he is generally fair in his depiction of the moral ambiguities at the heart of “eco-tage” and presents the voices of people negatively affected by Coronado. Anyone interested in the extreme edges of the environmental movement will be well served by this account, which throws a light on its often misunderstood philosophy. (June)
