Eco-protesters get creative

In reference to the pic: Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher tainted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them.
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You may have never heard of the Monkey Wrench Gang—unless you read the 1975 novel by maverick writer and nature lover Edward Abbey, who introduced the world to a fictional collection of green misfits waging a guerrilla war against industrialization in the American West. They sabotage bulldozers and construction sites, burn billboards and destroy dams, all to keep their beloved Southwestern desert pristine. Think of it as muscular environmentalism, a world apart from the wonky work on climate change that now defines the mainstream green movement.

Still, the outlaw spirit lives on in the work of contemporary monkeywrenchers like Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old college student who singlehandedly disrupted a multi-million-dollar land auction that would have put hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in southern Utah in the hands of oil and gas companies. But DeChristopher didn't use sabotage or homemade bombs—just chutzpah. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which administers America's public lands, was running the auction on Dec. 19, in the waning days of the Bush Administration. Environmental groups including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) had been fighting the move, arguing that the energy companies would damage nearby national parks and culturally sensitive areas. But the fight seemed lost, until DeChristopher, an economics student at the University of Utah, arrived at the sale. "I saw this as a very corrupt and fraudulent process, and a threat to my future," he says.

He decided to do something, but what? He thought about making a show or a speech, but as he watched the rapid-fire auction unfold around him he had an idea. He would bid himself—entirely without the cash to pay for any land he might win. "I thought I'd just drive up the prices," DeChristopher says.

If BLM officials thought it was odd that a 27-year-old dressed like he'd just gotten out of class—as DeChristopher had—was bidding for oil and gas leases, they didn't say anything. At first he simply bid near the beginning of an auction, to keep prices rolling, but as the sales continued, he started to win plots of land—12 parcels in all, more than 22,000 acres, at the cost of $1.79 million. By the end, DeChristopher was simply bidding nonstop, and BLM officials finally caught on to what he was doing and took him into custody. Though now in the hands of the feds, he remains cool. "I told them I was there to commit civil disobedience and that this was a fraudulent auction," he says.

*Complete article at link.