The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is a non-profit organization that focuses on several campaigns, all designed to protect forests, their inhabitants, and other natural ecosystems around the world by way of providing education to the general population, organizing grassroots efforts, and undertaking “non-violent” direct action.
While RAN only advocates the use of non-violent direct action, the group’s disruptive tactics have led to numerous companies accepting their demands.
Importantly, RAN has forged links with other link-minded environmental, animal rights, and anti-globalization groups, such as those who frequently engage in more violent “direct actions.” These connections may lead to other groups joining in RAN’s protests of targeted companies and institutions.
Ongoing Operations
At this time, RAN is actively involved in four major campaigns:
– Freedom from Oil Campaign: Seeks to “end America’s oil addiction, stop oil wars, and curb global warming” by persuading the US auto industry to significantly improve fuel efficiency and eliminate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions through new technologies.
– Global Finance Campaign: Attempts to halt major banks from providing financial support to coal plants, to “unsustainable” logging operations, and to coal development and carbon-intensive projects that contribute to climate change.
– Old Growth Campaign: Campaign against companies that use or support “outdated, destructive logging methods.”
– Stop Rainforest Agribusiness Campaign: Attempts to halt the expansion of soy and palm oil plantations that are destroying ecosystems, contributing to global climate change, and displacing local inhabitants.
Campaign Tactics
RAN encourages its members and supporters to employ “non-violent” direct actions in order to place significant pressure on companies and institutions and, “turn the public stigma of environmental destruction into a business nightmare for any American company that refuses to adopt responsible environmental policies.”
Therefore, RAN regularly engages in acts of civil disobedience and other illegal “direct actions” that have led to the arrest of numerous members. Examples of previous actions against various companies include:
– In September 2007, RAN held demonstrations against Bank of America during the company’s 37th Annual Investor’s Conference. The campaign director for RAN infiltrated the conference and was able to direct questions to the company’s CFO.
– In 2004, RAN members seized a crane tower and effectively shut down a construction site in downtown Seattle.
– In 2003, RAN activists scaled a 14-story building owned by Ford Motor Company to hang a 50 by 30 foot banner opposing Ford.
– Throughout a seven-year campaign against Home Depot, RAN activists:
o Declared an “ethical-day of shoplifting” and stole lumber from Home Depot stores
o Rigged stores’ intercom systems to broadcast messages protesting the company
Connections to Other Environmental/Animal Rights Groups
An analysis of RAN’s online presence and other open sources indicates that the group is connected to numerous similar environmental, anti-globalization, and animal rights activist groups, including: Earth First!, Ruckus Society, GreenPeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
It is likely that some members and supporters of RAN are also members and supporters of the above connected groups. Activists from direct action groups such as ELF are often reluctant to publicly declare their allegiance to such groups (i.e. ELF, ALF) due to fears of arrest and/or prosecution, as they employ methods including vandalism, property damage, and arson, often through the use of homemade incendiary devices. Instead, committed activists will often engage in lawful and public demonstrations as members of “legitimate” and “legal” activist groups, like RAN. Additionally, activists will use connections made through these “legitimate” organizations to bolster the underground and illegal activities of more militant groups such as ELF.
RAN has also publicly declared its support for animal rights and anti-globalization activist groups.
Additionally, RAN provides funding to the Ruckus Society’s “Action Camp,” which is a weeklong, intensive training program including both theoretical and strategic workshops where activists focus on advanced campaigning skills and other hands-on technical training in tactics for various direct actions.
Topics at the camp include: “police confrontation strategies,” “using the media to your advantage,” and “agitation and disruption techniques.” Activists from RAN, Earth First!, and ELF are among those who attend the camp.
Implications
RAN’s connection to groups such as Earth First! and ELF may lead to other animal and environmental activists joining in RAN’s campaigns against various companies and institutions, who often have their own reasons for targeting these businesses.
Further, legitimate groups such as RAN will continue to provide avenues for more militant activist organizations to forge ties and funding in an effort to bolster their underground activity, contributing to the overall growth of the environmental and animal rights movement.