David Benac, PhD
Image from Randy Hayes (L to R: Brent Blackwelder, Randy Hayes, Barbara Dugelby, and Mike Roselle)
Thank you to Jason and Toussaint of the This Is Revolution podcast for taking the time to talk about radicalism, grassroots organizing, the past and future of environmental action, and my new book. Check out the full conversation by clicking here.
In 1989, the World Rainforest Movement gathered in Penang, Malaysia, for its annual meeting as the rainforest movement entered the mainstre
am in the United States. The meeting proved consequential. Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), a close ally of Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network (RAN), had spent the previous decade assisting Borneo’s Indigenous Dayak’s efforts to protect their ancestral territories from rapacious logging by private and national corporations. At the meeting, SAM approached RAN with a request to draw more allies to the Dayak.
RAN agreed, after making a key change. SAM’s European allies had labeled the effort the “Ban Japan Campaign,” in reference to the primary market for Borneo’s timber. RAN rechristened it as the “Turn Mitsubishi Green Campaign” to avoid the era’s anti-Japanese bigotry and shift the focus to one of the two corporations most responsible for the deforestation.
For the next decade, RAN organized boycotts, days of action, letter writing, civil disobedience, educational programs, and a dizzying array of creative tactics to push Mitsubishi to adopt sustainable practices and respect the rights of Indigenous people. The campaign stretched from Borneo to the cloud forests of Ecuador and the temperate rainforests of British Columbia and enlisted grassroots groups on six continents.
The campaign, which led to a significant, if partial, victory in 1997, remains one of the more studied examples of how grassroots movements can compel the planet’s largest corporations to change. The explanations for the success are complex, but include building a sense of community with shared values and inclusivity, diverse and creative tactics, unrelenting persistence over many years, and a commitment to incorporating humor and art alongside confrontation and incisive critique. The giant Godzilla inflatables that elevated the campaign’s early days were iconic of one of the most effective eras of grassroots environmentalism in the United States.
Get the rest of the story in David, Benac, Rainforest Radicals: A History of Rainforest Action Network and Transnational Organizing (University of Nebraska Press, June 2026) Preorder at https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/.../rainforest-radicals/