ABSTRACT
In 1991 Earth First!, a radical green network inspired initially by the US movement of the same name, mobilised in the UK and has since acted as a catalyst for direct action anti-road campaigns at sites including Twyford Down in Hampshire and the Mil in East London. Structural factors, both political and economic, have aided its emergence but structural influences ‘do not march in the streets’ or determine the nature of collective action; instead they provide opportunities that must be consciously exploited by key activists or political entrepreneurs. The creation of the anti roads movement of the 1990s is a clear example of how cultural resources may be invoked to activate existing green networks so as to resource accelerated mobilisation.
