Wild Earth Society, Incorporated (a Vermont corporation, 1991)
Formerly doing business as The Wildlands Project (trade name registered 2001)
Now doing business as The Wildlands Network (trade name registered 2008)

and

North American Wilderness Recovery Incorporated (an Arizona corporation, 1992 - informally also known as The Wildlands Project)
Also doing business as The Rewilding Institute (trade name registered 2003)

and
 

Wildlands Project, Inc. (a Florida corporation, 2005)

Three related organizations promoting a continental-scale program to de-develop North America and "unmake" its technological and industrial civilization.

This profile deals with context issues such as corporate structures, sequences of events and administrative details regarding the three organizations. See the separate profiles for programs and content issues.

Dave Foreman linkage: All three organizations are commonly known as "The Wildlands Project" because they were based on a wilderness preservation concept forwarded primarily by William David "Dave" Foreman, who was simultaneously the chief officer of the Vermont and Arizona corporations, but not the Florida Corporation. Foreman resigned from Wild Earth Society in 2003, but remains chairman of North American Wilderness Recovery, doing business as The Rewilding Institute.

Background: Dave Foreman had worked for the mainstream Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. in the late 1970s and left in an internal shakeup that left him disillusioned with the half-measures and compromises in saving wilderness that politics required. "The Wildlands Project" was born out of that disillusionment and conceived by Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke and Bart Koehler in 1983 while on a Northern California recruiting "road show" for Earth First!, the radical environmental group they co-founded in 1980 with Mike Roselle and Ron Kezar. Foreman, already the charismatic leader of Earth First!, later emerged as the leading advocate of "The Wildlands Project."

The 1983 concept was called the "Earth First! Wilderness Preserve System." Foreman, Wolke and Koehler co-authored an article with that title in the June 21, 1983 issue of Earth First!: The Radical Environmental Journal, summarizing the idea:

It is not enough to preserve the roadless, undeveloped country remaining. We must re-create wilderness in large regions: move out the cars and civilized people, dismantle the roads and dams, reclaim the plowed land and clearcuts, reintroduce extirpated species.

The project seemed like mere bluster in 1983, and did not develop. However, in 1987 Foreman became notorious for releasing a saboteur manual titled, EcoDefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching.
"Monkeywrenching" was a synonym for "sabotage" borrowed from Edward Abbey's novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, in which environmentalists plot to blow up Glen Canyon Dam to return the Colorado River to its original state.
EcoDefense provided detailed instructions for committing a wide array of crimes to save nature by destroying industrial infrastructure one piece at a time. It became the Earth First! bible. Unforeseen by Foreman, his EcoDefense manual also became a key element in turning the fizzled Earth First! Wilderness Preserve System into the credible threat of the Wildlands Project.

Foreman in trouble: EcoDefense fed a widespread crime wave that gave rise to headlines such as the Phoenix [Arizona] Gazette's, "Terrorism fears grow at home - Earth First!, other groups stir fears of injury, deaths."
The FBI conducted a sting operation to prosecute Foreman for conspiracy with a group of four activists plotting to blow up power lines at several nuclear power plants in the American Southwest. An undercover FBI agent obtained sufficient evidence to arrest Foreman at his Tucson, Arizona home on May 31, 1989 for providing cash to the four perpetrators to buy metal-cutting incendiary devices and instructions by providing them copies of his book EcoDefense.
Thus, Foreman's monkeywrenching manual was instrumental in bringing his sabotage advocacy career to an abrupt end and turning him to the Wildlands Project.

Foreman in makeover: Out on bail, Foreman rearranged his life in preparation for his felony conspiracy trial, which would not begin for another year.
First, Foreman resigned Earth First! in mid-August, 1990, stating that a new, younger generation had taken over and strayed from the original mission of saving wilderness in favor of leftist / anarchist protest blockades against timber and mining companies. Functionally, his departure triggered the mass defection of the older co-founders of Earth First!, leaving only the youngest co-founder, Mike Roselle, to lead the reinvented group. Instrumentally, Foreman's departure also distanced him from any criminal acts that might be carried out by activists in the name of Earth First! and affect the outcome of his upcoming felony conspiracy trial.

Second, in late 1990, Foreman invited Earth First! Journal editor John Davis to his new residence in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Together they planned to shut down the Earth First! Journal, and publish a new magazine that would transform Foreman's public image from eco-saboteur to a respectable advocate for non-criminal wilderness preservation.

They would portray Foreman as extreme enough to retain his radical wilderness constituency yet avoid prosecution - which might help at his trial (it didn't).


Foreman as Wild Child: Davis agreed to shut down Earth First! Journal and edit the new quarterly magazine, to be called Wild Earth. The first issue was in mockup form in January, 1991, and the Library of Congress registered the Wild Earth International Standard Serial Number (ISSN 1055-1166) Feb. 8, 1991. The first issue set the tone of respectability for Foreman by framing his homey feature, "Around the Campfire" with the words of notables ranging from a co-founder of Earth First! to a credentialed academic. Wild Earth's first issue:

Spring 1991 • Ecological Foundations for Big Wilderness; Howie Wolke on The Impoverished Landscape; Reed Noss on Florida Ecosystem Restoration, Biodiversity & Corridors in Klamath Mtns.; Earth First! Wilderness Preserve System; Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Marshall Plan; Dolores LaChapelle on Wild Humans; Dave Foreman “Around the Campfire;” and Bill McCormick’s Is Population Control Genocide?

All perfectly legal (if edgy) save-the-earth public policy discussions, almost bland, with just a hint of chili pepper. Succeeding issues carried on the mix.
 

Foreman the felon: In April, 1991, the five bombing suspects' legal counsel began their trial as a media circus to justify vandalism to save nature, but the media paid no attention.

After more than three months' impassioned rhetoric, the judge was so unimpressed, the jury appeared so hostile, and their defense came across as so weak that their lawyers gave up and recommended a plea agreement. All five accepted a guilty plea agreement and the trial was halted August 14, 1991.

Three weeks later, Foreman signed two plea agreements at the same time, both dated September 6, 1991:
 

• one, a guilty plea of felony conspiracy that would be reduced to a misdemeanor if he kept a clean slate for five years (United States of America v. David William Foreman [sic - his correct name is William David Foreman], case number CR-89-192-PHX-RCB, p. 12), and,

• two, a guilty plea of misdemeanor depredation of government property, which would replace the felony plea upon five years of good behavior (CR-89-192-PHX-RCB, p. 2). He made good on the agreement and paid a $250 misdemeanor fine after the five years elapsed.

Foreman got no prison time, but could have no contact with Earth First! and do nothing to advocate criminal acts - as a convicted felon, he had no First Amendment civil rights. He was not only denied his charismatic radical leadership role, but also his income from Earth First!, although he was allowed to keep royalties from his January 1991 book, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. After five years, the 1991 plea agreement was fulfilled, and Foreman was no longer a convicted felon.

THE WILDLANDS PROJECT'S THREE CORPORATE PROFILES

IMPORTANT NOTE: The corporate structures of the Wildlands Project have always operated as part of a network including many other groups and initiatives such as the "Yellowstone to Yukon" project and "wildlife corridor" campaigns, among many others. Some allied groups list their affiliation or connection to the Wildlands Project corporations, but many do not. Well over 200 different organizations share projects with the Wildlands Project corporations.

This network / coalition structure has led critics and the general public to treat the term "Wildlands Project" as a generic term, just as the brand name "Kleenex" is used for any kind of nose tissue. That creates damaging confusion among the victims of any Wildlands Project-type of restrictive land use campaign. People hurt by such campaigns don't know who to fight back against or how to trace who is paying for it.
 

THE GENERIC "WILDLANDS PROJECT" PROBLEM: Many citizens whose lives and property have been affected by some large-scale land use campaign think of it as "The Wildlands Project" whether or not any of the three corporations are involved. This creates a serious social, political and economic dilemma of identifying the source of their problem.

Thinking about "The Wildlands Project" as a vague, amorphous concept out to destroy private property and individual rights is accurate, but not useful for litigation, legislation, or organizing resistance campaigns. Detailed information about which groups are operating which campaigns is essential to combating forces out to "unmake civilization" and destroy the industrial and economic strength of the United States.

Identifying and analyzing the nodes in the network is a matter of national security. The following profiles of the seminal Wildlands Project corporations are critical starting points for those who want to fight back and win.

Corporation 1: Between the day the Earth First! trial halted (August 14) and the day Foreman signed his plea agreements (September 6), on August 21, 1991 a number of his friends incorporated a non-profit group in Vermont first known as the Cenozoic Society, Incorporated - Wild Earth. The hyphenated name changed in 2000 to Wild Earth Society Incorporated and Vermont records no longer show the original name.

The Cenozoic Society's sole activity was publishing Wild Earth, edited as agreed by John Davis, "melding conservation biology and wildlands activism". It was not originally the Wildlands Project, but within two years of its 1991 incorporation, its Vermont filings were included as part of the Arizona filings of North American Wilderness Recovery, as shown below, causing confusion among critics and the media as to who, what, and where the Wildlands Project really was.

The Wildlands Project process: The project itself was developed from the raw original Earth First! concept of 1983 into a coherent plan with scientific and legal underpinnings primarily by three credentialed academicians (although others were influential):

Reed F. Noss, Ph.D. (1988, Wildlife Ecology, University of Florida), who in 1991 was a research associate at Stanford University and research scientist at the University of Idaho, later an endowed professor at the University of Central Florida, with the specialty of "Multicriteria conservation planning on regional to continental scales."

Michael E. Soulé, Ph.D (1964, Population Biology, Stanford University) in 1991 was the Chair and a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, now emeritus. Soulé is credited with promoting the concept of "conservation biology," which, in the words of retired U.S. Forest Service scientist Richard Everett, "is concerned only with plant and animal habitat and does not consider human use of the land."



David  A. Johns, Juris Doctor, earned degrees in law and political science from Columbia University. Currently Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Portland State University, Portland OR. He specializes in "place-based ecosystem conservation on a continental scale" and in "assuring the accountability and financial health of small nonprofits." In addition to teaching law and political science, he serves as treasurer of the Society for Conservation Biology, co-founded and remains a board member of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and co-founded and was the first executive director of The Wildlands Project.
 

Corporation 2: By late January 1992, Dave Foreman had his affairs sufficiently in order after his felony conviction to help form North American Wilderness Recovery, Inc. in Arizona. Current Arizona records show:

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