Atlanta Forest Defenders: Frontliners of Environmental Defense

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms shared plans to construct a new police training academy in Southeast Atlanta in March of 2021. The plot was leased by the city to the Atlanta Police Foundation and contains 381 acres in the middle of Weelaunee Forest. The land is being leased for only ten dollars per year. These plans came as a direct response to uprisings in 2020 after the murder of Rayshard Brooks, who was killed a mile away from the proposed academy by a police officer. The academy will cost $90 million dollars total, $30 million of which will be paid for by taxpayers, and the other $60 million paid for by private donors.

The proposed police academy is not only a monument and perpetuation of Atlanta’s most oppressive institution, but it is the active destruction of an incredibly important buffer of the already rampant environmental racism in the area. Southern Atlanta is a primarily Black, low-income area facing disproportionate environmental hazards from the Intrenchment Creek Pollution Control Facility, upstream from the South River. Permitted and unpermitted pollutants, such as ammonia, phosphorus and metals still flow heavily into this area due to a lack of enforcement by Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division. Weelaunee Forest is a natural buffer that helps filter these pollutants, along with those from nearby highways and landfills from reaching the neighboring areas. In the summer, Atlanta acts as an urban heat island, containing heat in urban infrastructure to lethal temperatures that disproportionately affect marginalized communities that lack heat-resisting resources. By leasing to the Atlanta Police Foundation, the city of Atlanta is replacing one of the last environmental protections the nearby neighborhoods have with a catalyst of violent oppression.

However, the construction of the new police academy has not come without valiant resistance. Opponents of the academy’s construction have dubbed the project “Cop City,” and have conducted monumental resistance efforts in the name of environmental protection.

These resistance efforts have been ongoing since the first bulldozer appeared in Jan. 2022. Over the last year, a coalition of anarchists, eco-defenders, and community organizers have been using a variety of means to prevent contractors and police from seizing complete control of the forest. The organizers have come to be known as “Atlanta’s Forest Defenders.” Militants have been establishing encampments, employing guerilla tactics, tree spiking, and destroying equipment to fight the construction of Cop City. Clashes with law enforcement have been violent and frequent, with dozens of arrests already on the books. On Jan. 18, these clashes turned lethal when a police officer killed 26-year-old Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, who was encamped in the forest as part of resistance efforts. Terán, nicknamed Tortuguita for their love of turtles, was shot after allegedly opening fire against an approaching officer. While the police department claims Tortuguita shot first, the police report states that there is only body cam footage of the aftermath, not the altercation itself. Tortuguita was also a proclaimed pacifist, according to their friends and mother.

“He was not a violent person. He was a pacifist. He would tell me that all the time. ‘I am a pacifist’ He wouldn’t even kill an animal,” Belkis Terán, Tortuguita’s mother told CNN.

Tortuguita’s death has sparked more national interest in Cop City. Demonstrations across America have vandalized many of Atlanta Police Fund’s top supporters such as Home Depot, Bank of America, and UPS. In Chicago, a Bank of America was vandalized with “ACAB” and “STOP COP CITY.” An ATM was also destroyed in protest. In downtown Atlanta, protestors lit fireworks in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation, burned a cop car, and smashed several windows. While news sources such as Fox and AP are focusing heavily on these acts of protest, their discussions of Tortuguita and the Atlanta Forest Defenders’ year-long efforts are quite sparse.

Vandalism against property is incomparable to the violence perpetrated by Cop City. Forcefully removing the Muscogee people from the Weelaunee Forest to build slave plantations was violence. Establishing a militarized police force that disproportionately kills marginalized people is violence. Destroying one of the largest buffers of environmental hazards in Southern Atlanta is violence. Atlanta Forest Defenders are giving their lives to protect their community and their environment, and while I am not asking anybody else to do the same, we must acknowledge what they are willing to do and make the most of their risks. Cop City must be resisted at all costs; it threatens not only Atlanta, but sets a precedent of what is allowed elsewhere. By fighting back, we oppose further militarization of police in America and the perpetuation of environmental violence against citizens and nature. Cop City is a message as much as a monument, and it tells us how far systems of oppression are willing to go to keep their power. By resisting Cop City, we resist fascism, ecocide, and our continued subordination.

The militarized Atlanta police could very well overpower the Atlanta Forest Defenders. They know it, but they hold out because the fight is not theirs alone. In Chicago, our home as Wildcats, we can still support the Atlanta Forest Defenders. Whether it be physically attending a demonstration, donating to the solidarity fund, or just spreading awareness on social media, each of us are able to show our support for the people of Atlanta who are currently being shadowed by the boot of oppression.

“You know, wherever struggles are forced into a smaller territory, wherever defense becomes the sole mechanism for struggle, defeat is already guaranteed…

With the current movement here, it's clear to me that the fate of the South River, Weelaunee forest will be determined in Midtown Atlanta, and it will be determined in Chicago, and in New York, and Los Angeles, and in Seattle.”

Anonymous Forest Defender, 2022

Rose Warfare's "STOP COP CITY"

More resources:

https://stopcop.city/

https://atlsolidarity.org/

Rose Warfare's Cop City Documentary

Companies on APF Board of Trustees

@defendatlantaforest on Instagram

@stopcopcity on Instagram