Eco-Radicals Expand Sabotage Tactics to Target Wind Energy Infrastructure in Belgium
Executive Summary
A known anarchist website with ties to the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts (ALF/ELF) has publicly endorsed and promoted an act of sabotage against a wind turbine project in Houdremont, Belgium. The incident highlights a growing fringe within eco-radical networks that views even renewable energy infrastructure as a threat to the natural world.
Analysis
On June 30, 2025, the anarchist-aligned platform Act for Freedom Now! published a translated report from French anarchist sources celebrating the sabotage of a wind turbine measuring mast in Houdremont, Belgium. The mast, part of the early infrastructure for a proposed 10-turbine wind farm spanning the municipalities of Bièvre and Gedinne, was intentionally felled after its support cables were cut—causing over €80,000 in damage.
While the act occurred in May 2025 and was reported locally by Belgian media outlet Matele, its resurfacing and endorsement by Act for Freedom Now! signals more than a delayed news update—it’s an ideological alignment. The site, which routinely shares direct-action communiqués from radical environmentalist and anarchist groups like ALF and ELF, published the translation under its “Sabotage, Arsons, Attacks” category. The intent is clear: to elevate this action as an example to replicate.
This development underscores a longstanding but often misunderstood current within radical ecological thought: eco-extremism that opposes all industrial development, including so-called “green energy.” In this worldview, large-scale wind farms are not seen as solutions to climate change, but as symbols of technocratic control, land exploitation, and ecological colonization. Groups that adhere to this position reject not only fossil fuels but the industrial logic behind renewable energy development.
The site’s decision to publish the report—and to do so under an explicitly militant framing—reflects an attempt to normalize sabotage of renewable infrastructure within the wider eco-anarchist and insurrectionary circles. This mirrors ELF’s historical targeting of genetically modified crops, biotech labs, and suburban sprawl—not necessarily for their emissions but for their perceived role in expanding human domination over nature.
Of note is the fact that local authorities and communities were already ambivalent about the wind farm project, with both Bièvre and Gedinne expressing reservations. This local opposition may have provided additional rhetorical cover for the saboteurs, who are often attuned to leveraging community discontent while remaining fundamentally opposed to all forms of institutional development.
The language used in the Act for Freedom Now! post avoids legalistic or defensive framing. There is no call for investigation or justice—only a celebration of the damage and a silent nod to those who might consider similar actions elsewhere. The lack of a direct claim of responsibility, typical for insurrectionist anarchist operations, further suggests this was a calculated action designed to inspire copycat tactics rather than draw individual attention.
As infrastructure for the energy transition expands across Europe, energy-sector targets are increasingly at risk not just from conventional protestors or geopolitical sabotage, but also from eco-radical actors who reject the premise of large-scale technological solutions entirely. These movements remain decentralized, transnational, and difficult to infiltrate—making their threat asymmetrical and ideologically driven.
