Mike Roselle | Tree Spiker, From Earth First! to Lowbagging

Published: November 14, 2009

Two Missoula environmental activists have collaborated on an edgy tale of life on the precipice. Mike Roselle, one of the founders of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society, has been in the business of sabotaging environmental destruction for three decades.

He now publishes lowbagger.org, an online activist blog, with editor Josh Mahan, a graduate of The University of Montana’s journalism program, who helped write the book.

Roselle’s history with the environmental movement runs deep and wide: he’s been at the frontline of efforts to oppose nuclear tests, the destruction of old-growth forests and, most recently, mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Although the title of the book, Tree Spiker, conjures the type of tactics rejected by mainstream environment groups, Roselle remains a staunch advocate of Gandhi’s brand of nonviolent civil disobedience. “Like all warfare, nonviolent civil disobedience requires training, discipline and sacrifice,” he writes. “In the end, it takes more courage to sit in front of a bulldozer than it does to burn one.”

To anyone with an interest in the environmental movement, Tree Spiker is a page-turner, abetted by Roselle’s colorful anecdotes (which include stories about infiltrating the Nevada Test Site, ascending Mount Rushmore and scaling the Golden Gate Bridge), but fueled by his passion and first-hand knowledge of environmental activism.

“Want to get fired up about saving the planet?” asks Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. “Get this book.”

– Kristi Niemeyer