Up close and personal with Kieran Suckling

Author: Damien M. Schiff

Earth Island Journal has an interview with Kieran Suckling, head of the environmentalist group Center for Biological Diversity. (Suckling is a former member of Earth First!; the organization's website describes the group as an antidote to "namby-pamby environmental groups" and describes its membership as ranging "from animal rights vegans to wilderness hunting guides, from monkeywrenchers to careful followers of Gandhi, from whiskey-drinking backwoods riffraff to thoughtful philosophers, from misanthropes to humanists"). Suckling is, in my view, responsible for CBD's position as being perhaps the leading legal organization in America using the Endangered Species Act and other laws to prevent productive use of public and private lands. CBD is a group particularly interesting to watch because it often takes positions at odds with the "more established" environmental organizations, such as the National Resource Defense Council or even the Sierra Club. The article is a useful piece to review for anyone interested in how the other side thinks.