The war in the woods is becoming high-tech, and low-down. The combatants in the battle between the environmental movement and the forest industry have tried just about everything else, so it hardly comes as a surprise that they have both deployed forces in cyberspace.

After all, the World Wide Web is the great equalizer. It provides a grassroots organization with a cost-effective way to mount a publicity campaign that can look as clean and sophisticated - and persuasive - as anything produced by a major corporation or government agency.

And so the Forest Action Network (FAN), the most confrontational participant in the campaign to halt logging on British Columbia's Central Coast, has a Web site no less impressive than that of its arch rival, the industry-supported Forest Alliance of British Columbia. Until recently, both groups have used their sites to promote their causes in a logical manner.

Now, however, FAN has taken the game to a new level with "Patrick Moore is a Big Fat Liar" - a Web site that looks very much like a direct attack on the Forest Alliance's principal spokesman.

Why single out Mr. Moore? Because he is probably the environmentalists' most effective critic. He holds a doctorate in environmental science and, before joining the industry's public-relations machine, was a leading member of Greenpeace for its first 15 years.

The fact that someone so high-profile switched camps with such a splash has long grated on the green camp, but taken at face value the new Web site comes as a shock. Its features include:

• The Top Ten Lies Told by Patrick Moore (accompanied by photographs in which his nose gets progressively longer).
• The Top Ten Quotes About Patrick Moore, none of them flattering.
• Fun and Games, in which he is portrayed as a puppet of the forest industry and "kids" are invited to make up uncomplimentary anagrams of his name (Atomic Porker is a favourite).

There are also pages that cite scientific reports on devastating forest practices in British Columbia, but much of the material is fiercely personal, which FAN spokesman Gavin Edwards describes as a first for his group.

Mr. Edwards characterizes the site as "more of a humorous approach than a personal attack," but concedes that it is too soon to tell what kind of effect it is having.

Not for Mr. Moore, however. He calls the FAN creation unfunny, inaccurate, unscientific and potentially libellous. In an interview, he oscillated between dismissing it as juvenile and ineffective and refuting its allegations item by item.

The Top 10 List, he said, is a severe misrepresentation of his remarks, but neither he nor the alliance intends to take legal action because that would give environmentalists undue attention.

According to Mr. Edwards, the site was conceived by FAN's core group, which is based in Bella Coola, a remote logging and fishing village 500 kilometres up the coast but is financed and maintained by supporters in Los Angeles.

He defends it as an exchange of ideas and spirited debate, much like the one produced three years ago in the United States entitled "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar," in which critics of the right-wing radio commentator took swipes at some of his more outrageous claims and ideas.

Mr. Moore, however, says the site reflects a new desperation to counter his effectiveness as an industry spokesman. "I don't take them seriously, except that they believe in using dirty tricks," he said, "and they're extending their antagonism further afield," a reference to the recent confrontations between him and the B.C. environmental movement in Europe.

For the past three weeks, he has been trying to counter the environmentalists' campaign to launch a European boycott of B.C. wood products. In the process he has been accused of using some dirty tricks of his own.

For example, his accusers say he called his own "environmentalist" press conference in London that confused reporters who were seeking a similar event staged by*Greenpeace.*But he denies any attempt at confusion and accuses the other side of paranoia.

On public stages and in private meetings in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, Mr. Moore and environmentalists have attacked each other's credibility and produced a flood of contradictory materials. In a report to German publishers pondering the Greenpeace boycott call, Mr. Moore termed the environmentalists' documents "inaccurate and insulting, misleading and a gross misrepresentation."

Last Thursday, a team of executives from the B.C. Ministry of Forests hastily flew to the Netherlands to reinforce the arguments in meetings with wood-purchasing companies.

The environmentalists have stepped up their own barrage of information, with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund releasing documents last week that it said reveal the B.C. government is secretly unwinding its new environmental-protection regulations in the forests to placate an economically crippled forest industry.

Simultaneously, the environmentalists have released a stunning coffee- table book on the disputed coastal region, which they call The Great Bear Rainforest, with evocative writing and gorgeous photography of endangered wildlife and wilderness. Mr. Moore says it is a misleading fund-raising gimmick.

The rising level of vituperation between the two sides, on the Net and in Europe, reflects the all-or-nothing stakes which both sides see in the campaign. The debate is likely to grow this summer and beyond. It will be a bitter battle and will inevitably intrude further into the news and onto the Web.

Ross Howard is a member of The Globe and Mail's Vancouver bureau.
Copyright Globe and Mail 1998