Greenpeace Co-Founder Gives Pro-Logging Message Blasted As ‘Eco-Judas,’ Moore Now Stresses Cooperation

Republican leaders of a congressional panel studying forestry problems welcomed a pro-logging message Tuesday from a co-founder of Greenpeace.

“Much of the environmental movement has been highjacked by extremist activists who use the language of the environment for a movement that has more to do with class struggle and anti-corporatism,” Patrick Moore told the House Resources subcommittee on forests and forest health.

Moore, a former self-styled “radical environmentalist” turned timber-industry promoter, helped start Greenpeace with a “Save the Whales” theme in 1969. He served as a leader for 15 years and left the international conservation group in 1986.

He now works for the industry-backed Forest Alliance of British Columbia, which he says has prompted some former colleagues to call him an “eco-Judas.”

“When people say I’ve gone over to the other side, it’s not like I want to start whaling or dumping nuclear waste into the ocean,” Moore said in an interview before the hearing.

“I’m still an environmentalist. It’s just that we have to move from the politics of confrontation to the politics of cooperation.”

Moore and a Sierra Club official staking out a contrary position were the only witnesses before the panel Tuesday.

Moore showed lawmakers a 20-minute slide show that included before-and-after pictures of forests his grandfather clearcut 60 years ago.

“This clear cut looked ugly five years ago,” he said of a more recent harvest site. “Now it is beautiful with purple flowers.”

Debbie Sease, the Sierra Club’s legislative director, said Moore’s appearance was part of a “multimillion-dollar public relations hoax” intended to accelerate logging under the guise of improving forest health.

“The choice of this witness sends a signal that the industry recognizes that it faces a public-relations nightmare,” Sease told the panel.

Andrew Davies, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA in Washington D.C., confirmed that Moore is a founding member and former director of Greenpeace.

“He can get away with saying that stuff, it is true. That clear-cutting is good is false,” Davies said Tuesday.

“The thing to remember about him is that he makes some pretty ridiculous statements that are not supported by the scientific community and he is bank-rolled by some pretty serious money,” Davies said.

Moore said responsible logging can promote biological diversity and reduce catastrophic fire threats. He condemned the Sierra Club’s opposition to all commercial logging on national forests.

Worldwide, he said, deforestation is due primarily to clearing of forests for agriculture in developing countries.

“Deforestation is not caused by evil, greedy, multinational forest-products corporations. It is caused by nice farmers growing our food and nice carpenters building our houses,” Moore told the subcommittee.

His presentation drew praise from Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, chairman of the subcommittee, and Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.

“I wish every school child and every adult could see that,” said Doolittle, a critic of Clinton administration environmental policies.

“I view the environmental movement as basically a political movement on the far left,” he said.

Sease said a ban on commercial logging on national forests would be “an extremely conservative action,” conserving the value of trees for greater environmental and economic values.

“Our federal forest lands are far more valuable as intact, functioning ecosystems than they are for timber production,” she said.