Western Michigan University professor David Benac joined the Connecting Communities podcast to discuss his new book, a history of Rainforest Action Network.
Connecting Communities looks at the environment as the places where people work, live and play. In this conversation, the hosts talk with Benac about Rainforest Radicals: A History of Rainforest Action Network and Transnational Organizing, published by University of Nebraska Press.
How the book began. Benac teaches at Western Michigan University. He said the project grew out of earlier research on the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. Interviews with veteran loggers there complicated the story he expected to hear. They blamed mechanization and overharvesting as well as environmental protests for the loss of timber jobs. A search of lumber-company archives then led him to a campaign to protect temperate rainforest in British Columbia. First Nations led that campaign. Benac said Rainforest Action Network backed it with office space, resources and expertise, without seeking credit.
What made the network work. Benac said the group’s campaigns began when Indigenous or local groups invited it in. He said its founder defined “radical” as getting to the root cause of a problem, not treating symptoms. The group took on banks, development projects and big retailers, as well as individual companies. It targeted one major company for about ten years. Benac described how independent local Rainforest Action Groups, which raised their own money and chose their own tactics, could take on one issue from many directions. He recounted a coordinated day of action at Home Depot stores with costumes, banners and songs, and said the company later agreed to stop selling old-growth and tropical wood products.
Humor and persistence. In his closing thoughts, Benac pointed to community, a willingness to be called radical, respect for the people who live in the forests, and persistence. He said that if you’re running a ten-year campaign, “you can’t sustain it with anger.” He also cautioned that the group’s tactics can’t simply be copied, because every era has different people, issues and laws.
Research and oral history. Benac drew on archives, including the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, which holds the network’s papers, and on dozens of oral history interviews with people involved. He said he wanted the people who lived the story to tell it.
Watch the full conversation to hear Benac on the group’s creative tactics, how oral history shaped the book, and what activists today can learn from it.
Connecting Communities is produced with the resources of Public Media Network in Kalamazoo. Community Creator: Tina Westrick.
