Ecotage!

"Ecotage!" was a 1972 paperback book edited by Sam Love and published by Pocket Books.

The book was a collection of ideas that had been solicited by the group Environmental Action over the previous year in preparation for the publication of the book, for using sabotage, attention-grabbing stunts, and other ideas to draw attention to environmental issues. "Ecotage" is a contraction of ecological (or economic) and sabotage. The cover of "Ecotage!" features a photograph of a hippie throwing a pie in the face of a business executive.

The book was inspired by the actions of an individual who operated in the Chicago, Illinois area. Calling himself "The Fox", he engaged in such activities as plugging smokestacks and entering the offices of corporate executives to dump sewage on their desks. In turn, some of the actions suggested in "Ecotage!" actually began to be carried out, particularly billboarding, when small groups in the early 1970s such as the one calling themselves the "Eco-Raiders" in Tucson, Arizona, began cutting down billboards.

"Ecotage!" and the activities of those such as "The Fox" and the "Eco-Raiders," may have inspired Edward Abbey's 1975 novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and Dave Foreman's 1985 book "Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching".

The term ecotage has since passed into general use as a synonym for various direct action tactics (see: monkeywrenching.)

Publication

*Love, Sam, (1972), "Ecotage!" ISBN 0-671-78180-4