‘Frenzy Politics’ Descends on Nature Lovers : The anti-abortion movement’s scare tactics now threaten the guardians of the environment.

Abortions are more difficult to get now than they were 10 years ago. The laws haven’t changed, but threats and violence have scared off doctors and medical facilities. Now, the same tactics of intimidation, what some call “frenzy politics,” are being used by angry, determined opponents of federal and state environmental policies.

In the two decades since Roe vs. Wade, anti-abortion activists have pressed their case on an escalating scale, from pray-ins to break-ins to stalking abortion providers, from harassment to murder. Today, landlords and neighbors reject clinics as nuisances, and fewer doctors are willing to take the risk of being targeted by abuse or worse. Roe vs. Wade is still on the books; pro-choice people have largely won in the courts. But they’re losing in the streets.

A federal budget bill that would have ended logging restrictions that protect streams and wildlife was vetoed by President Clinton. But a number of other measures in the congressional hopper have sought to do everything from relaxing inspections on meat and water to gutting the Endangered Species Act to accelerating oil drilling on federal lands. Environmentalists have rallied with some success to prevent passage of these anti-environment bills. But they could win in Washington only to lose in the countryside.

Only a small minority of Americans who oppose environmental regulation advocate violence. But like an eerie echo of the abortion conflict, the rhetoric and the violence in the environmental debate are escalating.

The Wise Use Movement, an industry-backed organization, bused hundreds of protesters to public hearings on a National Parks Service eco-management plan for the Yellowstone area. The agitated crowd denounced park managers as Nazis and environmentalists as communists.

All over the West, hearings on environmental ordinances have turned into angry scenes, often hovering at the edge of violence. In Everett, Wash., an Audubon organizer at a public meeting was confronted by a property rights activist carrying a hangman’s noose. Shaking it at her, he announced, “This is for you.”

Both environmentalists and federal officials working in environmental management areas have been targeted. Environmental activists in Washington, New Mexico, Texas and Montana have received death threats. Assailants painted the hammer and sickle on Forest Service offices in Caton County, N.M. In Nevada, a Bureau of Land Management office and a Forest Service office were bombed.

Elected officials in more than 70 Western counties have passed ordinances designed to “take back” public lands, putting them under county rather than federal or state control. Most legal scholars say the ordinances are clearly illegal. That hasn’t stopped some county commissioners from threatening to arrest any “trespassing” Forest Service worker who tries to carry out his duties. In Nye County, Nev., Commissioner Richard Carver bulldozed open a road in Toiyabe National Forest to demonstrate what “take back” means, while armed men chased off two Forest Rangers trying to stop him.

In some parts of the West, Forest Service supervisors have issued cards to their officers telling them not to resist if they are confronted, but to wait for help from a U.S. attorney. They have to travel in pairs and stay in constant radio contact. Some now drive their own trucks and cars on the job because they fear being seen in a vehicle with a federal logo.

Federal Forest Service and land management workers are feeling scared and demoralized. Most people don’t want to be heroes, nor are most people so ideologically committed that they are willing to continue doing work that has turned dangerous. Just as many doctors stopped performing abortions when rhetoric turned them from friendly family physicians into “baby-killers,” so the vitriol and violence could induce many government workers to leave their once-benign jobs tending our nation’s resources. The same climate of animosity could discourage all but the most ardent environmental activists. The environmental cause could be lost without the repeal of a single law in Washington.