In recent years, the concept of environmental security has been adapted to include preparedness for acts of ecoterrorism. This latter term has now become synonymous with environmental terrorism where the perpetrator uses the environment as a weapon to harm an opponent. The intended outcome is usually large-scale deaths, severe damage to the environment, and instilling fear in the general population. This book explores various facets of ecoterrorism including the role of the state in pursuing and maintaining environmental security, a review of the concept of ecoterrorism, food security challenges and weaknesses, technological countermeasures to enable rapid detection or response, and existing pollution sources and hazards that may serve as targets for terrorist acts. In sum, this volume provides a useful overview for both the layperson and experienced researchers.

The first book to thoroughly address the topic, this volume examines the ideologies, tactics, and goals of environmental terrorists and offers a security planning methodology to defend against their attacks. To counter eco-terrorism, we must understand why it occurs. Eco-Warriors, Nihilistic Terrorists, and the Environment is a comprehensive examination of the vulnerability of the natural environment, of its nexus with the strategic goals of terrorists, and of a security-planning methodology that can prevent or ameliorate environmentally linked attacks. The first book to comprehensively address the prevention of environmentally focused terrorism, this work looks at the environment and the private and government facilities that impact it as assets to be protected. Focusing on the capability of lone-wolf terrorists and small, self-radicalizing cells to commit effective violent acts, security expert Lawrence E. Likar furnishes personality and operational profiles of both nihilistic and eco-warrior terrorists, showcasing an essential component of the behavioral-science-based, security-planning methodology he promotes. Most critically, the book addresses the gap in current security-planning methodology and literature, and it reveals novel intelligence-gathering techniques, operational procedures, and countermeasures designed to defend against attacks.

A vivid introduction to eco-terrorism in the United States, covering such groups as PETA, ALF, and ELF.

This book scrutinizes the growth of the ‘eco-terrorism’ movement operating on a global scale, focusing on the main groups and their more radical offshoots, both historically and those currently active. These include Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Front and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. It critically examines how these groups form and how they have evolved, their key personnel, their strategies and tactics, principles, motivating philosophies and attitudes to violence. Specifically, the book seeks to understand whether such groups inevitably evolve from activists to militants to terrorists, as the literature suggests. Lastly, it considers the future of such groups, asking whether they will become more prominent as more people become ecologically aware and as global environmental conditions deteriorate, or whether such groups have peaked as a force for environmental change.

Provides an overview of the issue of ecoterrorism, including history, terminology, biographical information on important figures in this field, and a complete annotated bibliography.

This volume brings together international scholars reflecting on the theory and practice of international security, human security, natural resources and environmental change. It contributes by 'centring the margins' and privileging alternative conceptions and understandings of environmental (in)security.

As concerns about human treatment of the environment and animals have increased over the years, so have decentralized and extremist groups related to these causes. Environmental and Animal Rights Extremism, Terrorism, and National Security analyzes the international development of radical movements relating to environmental concerns and animal rights in the context of the threats they pose to national security. In addition to tracing the factors responsible for the rapid growth of these movements over the last 25 years, this text presents countermeasures that governments can deploy to neutralize the risk posed by these threats now and in the future. Bringing to bear new developments such as cyber activity and online activism, Environmental and Animal Rights Extremism, Terrorism, and National Security offers an examination of the direct and indirect violence, lone-wolf terrorism, and leaderless resistance that have characterized these radical wings from their inception.By not only identifying the tactics and organizational structures often employed by these groups, but also addressing future trends toward increased radicalization, Environmental and Animal Rights Extremism, Terrorism, and National Security is an important resource for identifying, anticipating, and mitigating threats posed by such movements. Describes the psychological, social, and organizational mechanisms responsible for the functioning of the extremist wings of the interconnected environmental and animal rights movements in the context of national security Identifies the main tactical and organizational ways these movements develop, moving from hierarchical organization to network structures, leaderless resistance, and lone-wolf activities Covers radical environmental and animal rights groups, including Earth First!, Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, Animal Rights Militia, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Looks to future trends in radicalization of these movements