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Do crimes against property in which no one is killed or injured constitute acts of terrorism? That is one of two nagging questions that run through Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman’s thoughtful documentary, “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.” The other has to do with the efficacy of traditional forms of peaceful protest. In the 1990s, frustrated by its inability to accomplish its goals, the Earth Liberation Front, a leaderless international coalition of radical environmental groups, turned to acts of civil disobedience and destruction of symbols of environmental abuse. Were these actions, which caused many millions of dollars’ worth of damage, terrorist acts?
In March 2001 the American arm of the front was designated as the country’s “No. 1 domestic terrorist threat” by the F.B.I. After 9/11 that description became a loaded term, the word “terrorist” implying a murderous agenda by a group devoted (in its own words) to “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment” through nonviolent means. But is burning down a company and threatening the livelihood of its workers truly nonviolent?
The film focuses on the life of Daniel McGowan, a mild-mannered idealist who for several years was caught up in the front’s campaign, which grew to include arson. In December 2005, several years after leaving the group, Mr. McGowan was arrested in New York and sentenced to seven years at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.; in February of this year he was moved to a similar prison in Terre Haute, Ind. The sentence came with a “terrorism enhancement” provision that allows a judge to apply a harsher standard if the crime fits the traditional concept of “terrorism.” But does it?
Evenhandedly weighing both sides of these issues, “If a Tree Falls” is cautiously sympathetic to Mr. McGowan, who says he now regrets some of his actions, as do other front members who were part of a cell that was broken in an extensive F.B.I. investigation known as Operation Backfire.
“If a Tree Falls” is a personal story that doesn’t strive to be a comprehensive history of the Earth Liberation Front. According to the film, the cell in which Mr. McGowan operated as a prime mover crumbled amid heated debate about whether to cross the line into physical violence and go after captains of industry. Today autonomous, anonymous cells of the front still operate, although with much less frequency.
Soft-spoken and out of shape, Mr. McGowan doesn’t fit the popular image of a fiery-eyed radical activist. Born in 1974, the son of a New York policeman, he attended business school and briefly worked for a large public relations company. Galvanized by a documentary film about environmental destruction, he moved to Eugene, Ore., where he threw himself into environmental causes. One of his earliest radical acts was to be a lookout while front members burned down a timber plant.
The film’s sobriety and carefully balanced arguments make it an exemplary piece of reporting, although its emotional heat rarely rises to a boil. The most heartbreaking scenes show 500-year-old redwoods being felled and harvested and aerial views of clear-cut forest that resemble scraggly bald patches on a half-shaved head. Although a lumber executive says that for every tree cut down, six more are planted, it still hurts to see these majestic, centuries-old forest sentinels reduced to plywood.
In the most inflammatory scene, overzealous police officers in Eugene douse protesters with pepper spray and tear gas as they cling to trees that are about to be cut down to make room for a corporate parking lot. That confrontation helped push the Earth Liberation Front to take bolder actions that included the burning down of timber companies, S.U.V. dealerships, a wild-horse slaughterhouse and a $12 million ski lodge in Vail, Colo.
The film visits Mr. McGowan at his sister’s New York apartment, where he stayed while under house arrest. He is the furthest thing from a firebrand. The film’s contrite talking heads acknowledge that serious mistakes were made. On May 20, 2001, a poplar farm wrongly believed to be raising genetically engineered trees was set on fire. On the same day a $2 million fire destroyed the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington, where, it turned out, there were no genetically engineered plants.
Since then the front’s appetite for destruction has cooled.
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