accused Foreman of promoting eco-terrorism. In 1990, Foreman was one of five people arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation following operation THERMCON, in which FBI agents infiltrated an Arizona Earth First! group, encouraging them to sabotage a powerline feeding a water pumping station. While Foreman had no direct role in the attempted sabotage, he ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for handing two copies of Ecodefense to an FBI informant, and received a suspended sentence. By the late 1980s, Earth First! had split into two ideological factions; Foreman and others adhered to a biocentrist view characterized by "apocalyptic biodiversity" but were increasingly challenged by a "millenarianist social justice faction" influenced by the movement's Northern California-based members, including Roselle (who was based in Berkeley) and Judi Bari (of Mendocino County). After less than a decade, Foreman left Earth First!, disillusioned by the changing character of the organization. Foreman described himself "a redneck for the environment" and objected to the left-wing, social justice-oriented approach of younger environmental activists who had joined the group. Foreman and his wife, Nancy Morton, publicly split with Earth First! in 1990, writing in a letter at the time that the group had taken on an "overtly counterculture/anti-establishment style" influenced by the group's California wing. Roselle, in turn, denounced Foreman as "an unrepentant right-wing thug." After leaving Earth First! After leaving Earth First!, Foreman co-founded the Wildlands Network in 1991. The group aimed to establish a network of protected wilderness areas across North America. In 2003, Foreman later created a think tank, the Rewilding Institute. The New Mexico-based institute promoted policy proposals for long-term land conservation. From 1996 to 1998, he served on the Sierra Club's board of directors, but departed after the organization rejected his proposed policy on restrictive immigration. Controversy In a 1986 interview, Foreman said the United States should not provide aid for the Ethiopia famine and hunger crisis, but rather, "let nature seek its own balance." He later clarified his position, stating, "I have serious doubts and nagging questions about conventional 'humanitarian' foreign aid responses to the increasing problem of famine in the Third World. That is what I was trying to get at in my comments on famine in Ethiopia. In my oft-quoted remark about famine in Ethiopia, however, I failed to clearly make this point. Indeed, I implied through my sloppy, off-the-cuff remark that famine was purely a biological question of