Tre Arrow is an eco-terrorist, or green anarchist if you will. He takes extreme, often illegal, measures to get his green point across. He started his environmental activism in the late ‘90s, but first made the headlines with his actions in 2000. He was upset that the U.S. Forest Service planned to log near Eagle Creek, Oregon, so what did he do? He scaled the forest service building in Portland, Oregon to protest. But, he didn’t just scale the building. He stayed on a nine-inch ledge for 11 days.
Crazy you say? He has his followers. As a Pacific Green Party candidate, he received 15,000 votes for Congress. Dedicated to his cause, he broke his pelvis, ribs, and suffered a concussion after he fell 60 feet off a tree in 2001. Why was he in a tree? To protest logging in Tillamook County.
Now if Arrow wants to sit in trees to protest, I have no problem with that. But, the “eco-terrorist” title implies more than just tree sitting. In 2001, the FBI was looking for Arrow because trucks at Ross Island Sand and Gravel were damaged to the tune of $200,000 when they were set on fire. The arson was claimed by Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a cell of individuals whose press office released a statement which said they will use “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment.” More damage – $50,000 worth – occurred in 2001 when two trucks and a front loader at Ray Schoppert Logging Company were blown up with homemade bombs. ELF didn’t claim responsibility for that, but all fingers pointed towards them.
Arrow claims he is not now nor has never been a member of ELF, but in 2008 the FBI nailed him when he pled guilty to two counts of arson for the Schoppert bombing. He spent 78 months in jail and was released to a halfway house in 2009.
He resurfaced last week, perched in a tree in Portland. Although a rescue unit showed up, Arrow refused to leave the tree until he got the attention of the media. His message for the camera after he climbed down was “Are you willing to love and respect your mother, Earth?” I guess he wasn’t breaking any laws because firefighters verified with the owner of the land that he had given Arrow permission to be in the tree.