ABSTRACT
A network of environmental direct action groups first emerged in the UK at the beginning of the 1990s, in protest against road building, the importation of tropical hardwoods and the colonisation of public space by motor vehicles. This was in marked contrast to what had seemed to be a domesticated UK environmental movement, focused on lobbying (Doherty, 1999a; Wall, 1999; Rootes, 2000). In part, their emergence was a reaction against the limited opportunities for participation offered by mainstream environmental movement organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Most activists in the new environmental direct action (EDA) groups were young, middle-class, university-educated, and new to political activism (Wall, 1999). Although the local groups adopted their own names, the network was loosely linked at the national level as ‘Earth First!’ from 1992 onwards, and national Earth First! ‘gatherings’ provided local EDA groups with opportunities to discuss strategy and common perspectives (Seel & Plows, 2000).
