When we went up the trees, people called us nutters and tree huggers, but the activists were bang on the money – they were right then and they’re right now.
A lone woman clings to the spindly top of a silver birch tree, perched on branches not much bigger than twigs – all that is left after a cherry picker removed those further down.
An activist’s face is forced into netting slung between treehouses as a police officer handcuffs him, juxtaposed with the campaigners’ slogan ‘Freedom to breathe’.
Two activists slump in a treehouse, facepaint faded, expressions haunted with exhaustion, as the chainsaws buzz around them.
Knowledge gap
These are just a few of the powerful images from Until the Last Oak Falls, photographed by Adrian Fisk between 1995 and 1999 when environmental activists built treehouses, camps and tunnels in, around and under the trees they were fighting to save from destruction through the government’s road-building plans. This was the first time such tactics had been used in protests.
One of the reasons for the creation of the book was to fill a gap in knowledge about the history of environmental activism.
The modern-day slick PR tactics of groups such as XR and Stop HS2 involve copious images, videos and livestreams uploaded continuously to social media and to the press by media-savvy protesters.
But back then, taking photos of activists meant convincing them you weren’t an undercover police officer, having enough film with you, and taking it to a chemist to have the negatives developed. Quite simply, not many photos were taken at the time, and even fewer are still in existence.
Legacy
“There’s a new generation that doesn’t know what happened 25 years ago,” explains Fisk, who wants his book to “inform and inspire” the current generation. “When you know the legacy and history and ancestry of those who came before, you stand on their shoulders with more strength, more resilience.
It’s a bit like a tree – the deeper the roots, the further your information and knowledge of what came before you, the more powerful you are, and the harder it is to blow you over.”
Half the CO2 ever emitted has taken place in the 25 years since the photos were taken, Fisk notes. “When we went up the trees, people called us nutters and tree huggers, but the activists were bang on the money – they were right then and they’re right now.”
The book also provides an opportunity for those taking part in the 1990s protests – some of whom experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afterwards – to process their experiences, he says.
Annihilation
The anti-roads protesters many of the photos depict were focused on the UK government’s encouragement of the growth in cars through its £23-billion road-building programme, which entailed 2,700 miles of new or modified trunk roads and 150 new bypasses. Forests and ecosystems along those routes faced annihilation.
When we went up the trees, people called us nutters and tree huggers, but the activists were bang on the money – they were right then and they’re right now.
Though individual battles were lost – the Newbury bypass went ahead despite activism so disruptive that more than 800 arrests were made – in the end, the protesters won.
The government significantly cut back its road-building programme, with then transport minister Steven Norris even admitting that the Newbury bypass he had himself approved had been a mistake.
At the book launch, a discussion was held between activists from then and now.
Tactics
Some people had remained involved in environmental campaigning after the road protests, mixing with younger protesters at climate camps a decade later and passing on experiences and knowledge. In return, Fisk said, the older generation learnt skills they had never had from their younger counterparts, such as the use of social media.
This was very different from the 1990s protests, which were carried out by “very much a one-generation movement” of people in their teens and early twenties, recalled Roger Geffen, a prominent figure with the Reclaim the Streets movement, whose central London protests also feature in the book. “We hardly knew anyone from the protests that went before us, like the peace movement at Greenham Common,” he added.
The widely used technologies of today did not exist. “There was no internet, phones or social media – we mobilised by stuffing envelopes!”
Dan Hooper, aka Swampy – who became nationally famous in the 1990s for living in a tunnel trying to stop the expansion of the A30 in Fairmile, Devon – joined the Stop HS2 campaign with his son in 2020. “The clothes and the mobile phones were different, but the vibe was the same. The tactics are also similar – they worked then, and they work now.”
Interconnected
Josie Argyle, a Stop HS2 protester, who was taught by Swampy how to build a treehouse, said: “All these movements are interconnected. If you start a new campaign without looking back at the old ones, you’re losing so much richness in why you’re doing these things… The core understanding of what you’re campaigning for stays the same, and if you don’t have a hold of that, you spend a lot more time than you need to stumbling around.”
Swan, also involved in the anti-HS2 campaigns, said that the newer movements needed elders to pass on their knowledge, in a similar way to Indigenous communities. “The more we can document, exchange and upskill, the better. Both the new things that we’re learning, and also tactics from older movements so that we can build those into our strategies.”
Rollie, another HS2 protester, agreed that intergenerational communication is very important. “When I got to HS2 I had no idea how to dig a tunnel or climb a tree, but people taught me.”
Saturation
The internet, mobile phones and social media of course did not exist in the 1990s. But the photos in Fisk’s book are made more powerful by their rarity, Josie said. She was against the livestreaming now common by activists at protests because it can be used in evidence against activists in legal cases and to put injunctions in place, she explained.
“It’s getting to the point now that everything we put out is sending ourselves to prison. We have to look after each other, and part of that is to not post incriminating stuff of each other that isn’t even necessarily furthering our cause, because it loses its power when it gets shown in such vast quantities.”
Swan agreed that there was saturation and that people should be careful what they post. However, she pointed out that livestreams could also be used in the defence of activists, giving the example of video footage of an action where she was protecting a 200-year-old tree that was home to bats protected by law. She was arrested at the protest and prosecuted.
Lawful
“Through the video footage, it was clear that I was telling them that there were protected species in the tree and asking to speak to their ecologist. I was trying to resolve the situation in a lawful way,” she explained. In court, it became apparent that HS2 did not have a licence to disturb bats. The livestream had a second benefit when the movement’s numbers swelled as a direct result of the video, Swan added.
“Through the video footage, it was clear that I was telling them that there were protected species in the tree and asking to speak to their ecologist. I was trying to resolve the situation in a lawful way,” she said. In court, it became apparent that HS2 did not have a license for disturbing them, she pointed out. The livestream had a second benefit when the movement’s numbers swelled as a direct result of the video, she added.
The panel had various ideas about how to make climate activism more mainstream. Josie pointed to the stresses of the cost-of-living crisis. “It’s got to expand beyond the idea of climate on its own. It needs to be about capitalism,” she said.
Magic
Roger said there needed to be both “high-profile national-level spectaculars” and very easy entry-level local actions. “You just have to make sure that there is always room for people to get involved with something they can relate to in their area, and just first put on low-risk direct action on a very local issue – air pollution is a good one because it is a social justice issue as well as an environmental issue.”
Fisk said that it was really important not to accuse those in power of being wrong. “You’ve got to switch them on and inspire them – that’s when the magic happens,” he said.
Swampy believed that the key was to have fun. “Any action can be fun, and we can do it with joy,” he said. “All meaningful change in history has come through protest. Whether activists or not, it’s people saying no to something. Governments aren’t going to do it. They only answer to multinationals. Only through people power does meaningful change ever happen.”
Other exhibitions and talks are being planned at climate hubs around the country. Follow @adrianfisk to find out more.
This author
Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76.
