The term eco-terrorism has been used to describe two similar yet separate groups of terrorists those mainly concerned with animal rights and those primarily upset by despoiling of the land and air by technology and development. Both have been targeted by the FBI. Earlier this year, Philip Celestini, who heads up the bureau’s eco-terrorism task force, said that ecological and animal rights extremists constitute our greatest domestic terrorist threat.
Of the two groups, the animal rights people are by far the more active and dangerous, says Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis:
In some cases, however, their efforts have been counter-productive, says Bartlett:
Animal rights extremists have been especially active in Britain, where the government views them as a greater domestic threat than the Irish Republican Army. British pharmaceutical companies now spend $130 million per year on additional security to deal with the threat, and some estimates suggest that as much as $2 billion of investment has been discouraged. Unfortunately, those who die because of undiscovered medicines will never know that their deaths resulted because animal rights extremists put animal lives ahead of theirs, says Bartlett.
Source: Bruce Bartlett, Wild About Eco-Terrorists, National Centre for Policy Analysis, December 13, 2004.
For text http://www.ncpa.org/edo/bb/2004/20041213bb.htm
For more on Terrorismhttp://www.ncpa.org/iss/ter/
FMF Policy Bulletin/ 21 December 2004
