Direct Action in British Environmentalism

Brian Doherty, Matthew Paterson, Benjamin Seel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134547159
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Direct action has become a key part of the strategy of the radical environmental movement since the early 1990s, used to address issues such as road building and car culture, genetically modified foods, consumerism and global finance institutions. It has helped shape the political climate and has transformed the way people view political action, undermining the assumption that the power of politicians and big businesses cannot be contested. At the same time it is highly controversial, often illegal, and, partly due to its move towards greater militancy, may be included in new Prevention of Terrorism legislation. Direct Action in British Environmentalism charts and analyses the nature and impact of this new wave of direct action. The contributors approach the phenomenon from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines and present data concerning both the quantity and type of recent environmental protest and the sociological and organisational features of those performing it. Subjects covered include; the history of the movement and its influence on contemporary activism the identities and new tribalism of eco-warriors the reaction of the mass media the impact of direct action on mainstream politicians and policy the strategies and tactical innovations which underlie direct action Direct Action in British Environmentalism is the fullest scholarly analysis yet available of this phenomenon. It is essential reading for students of Politics and Environmental Studies as well as all those interested in the development and impact of direct action in environmentalism.

1 Direct action in British environmentalism¹

Brian Doherty, Matthew Paterson and Benjamin Seel

Introduction

The 1990s saw substantial changes in the character of British environmentalism. After a decade of increasing professionalisation of environmental organisations and increasing legitimacy of those organisations with state policy makers, environmentalism in the UK suddenly seemed to take a radical turn. In part in reaction to this professionalisation and the insider status of formerly radical groups like Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace, a new generation of environmentalists emerged with significantly different aims, ideologies, and forms of action.

At one level, this could be seen simply as a pendulum swing, with a resurgence of radicalism in response to perceived failures or limitations of the reformist strategies adopted by mainstream groups. Radicalisation involved a significant shift in the forms of action, and increasing numbers of activists taking part in direct action. There are debates about whether these forms of direct action are in themselves new, but nevertheless in the 1990s there was a dramatic rise in the amount of direct activism (see Rootes on confrontational action, this volume).

By direct action, we refer to protest action where protesters engage in forms of action designed not only or necessarily to change government policy or to shift the climate of public opinion through the media, but to change environmental conditions around them directly. Direct action is almost always illegal and involves situations where participants may or may not be prepared to accept arrest. It includes, but is also broader than, civil disobedience, which, as conventionally defined, requires protesters to be prepared to accept arrest. What distinguishes the new wave of direct action is an ethos characterised by an intention to affect social and ecological conditions directly, even while it also (sometimes) seeks indirect influence through the mass media, changed practices of politicians and political and economic institutions.

Traditions of civil disobedience and direct action have tended to draw their power from one of two logics. In Gandhi’s ‘satyagraha’ or ‘truth-force’ activists have sought to influence their opponents to change their plans by showing the moral superiority of their own perspectives through their willingness to undergo physical discomfort and other self-sacrifices. A second logic of ‘bearing witness’ makes it clear to the opponent that the protester believes what a government or company is doing is wrong and, despite lacking the physical or political power to stop them, they insist on witnessing the act to show that it is opposed. Both these logics apply moral pressure on opponents; the first appeals to their better nature, while the second also applies political pressure through the appeal to an audience.

The new wave of 1990s direct action draws upon aspects of these logics. Doherty (this volume) for example, shows how protesters have manufactured situations of personal vulnerability through tactical innovations, such as tunnels or treehouses, that give them the moral high ground and require their opponents to use physical power to implement their plans (see also Wall, this volume). Actions such as defending trees against destruction are not intended to show that protesters are in a majority, but to demonstrate the force of their commitment. While most 1990s environmental direct activists were sceptical about the chances of their protests causing a moral turn-about in their opponents, they did seek to apply political pressure through the force of bearing witness. However, what was original about this new wave of direct action was that it developed and propelled a new ethos and spirit of direct action. Protesters had a clearer idea that their opponents’ plans and ethos were firmly embedded in the capitalist political economy. The new environmental direct action has also emphasised the directness of its effect. Not content to try to influence politicians or institutions, protesters have seen direct action as disruption seeking to delay environmentally damaging projects and to escalate their costs. At many sites of direct action there was an avowed goal of actually stopping particular projects going ahead by getting in the way, damaging equipment and creating physical obstacles like tunnels, as well as building a groundswell of opinion to make the project politically untenable.

If the media has become a privileged site for the battles over cultural codes, then small but dramatic protests, which attract media attention, are effective. Nevertheless it is not clear that this is why protesters take this kind of action. Those involved in non-violent direct action (NVDA) are, unsurprisingly, ambivalent about the media. They do not see themselves as performing only to reach an audience through the media (see, for example, chapters by Seel and Plows, and Paterson, this volume). Most would argue that action which delays destruction and increases the costs for developers is worthwhile and justified, even without the media’s gaze.

There has already been much research into this development in British environmentalism, as the bibliographies to the various chapters in the book attest. This book tries to bring together and develop much of this research, to provide a broad set of accounts of the major questions concerning the nature, role and impact of direct action in British environmentalism in the 1990s. As will be obvious from the diversity of the chapters, there are a wide range of questions which could be asked in relation to this phenomenon, reflecting differences in disciplinary background or political concerns. Among these questions, perhaps seven are worth highlighting here.

One question concerns the novelty or otherwise of this development. How new is the ‘new environmentalism’, or ‘direct action’? Does the putative novelty consist in the forms of action adopted, the forms of organisation and self-understanding of the direct action groups, or simply the scale of activity? Alternatively put, what histories can be written about the origins of contemporary direct action? Such questions are important to understand the significance of this development in terms of broad questions of social change. These questions are addressed in different ways in the chapters by Rootes, Doherty, Wall and Purkis, in particular.

A second question is a fairly general one arising out of social movement analysis. To what extent can the ‘new environmentalism’ be referred to legitimately as a social movement, or more specifically as a new social movement (NSM)? Such a question asks theoretical questions concerning the nature of the groups involved, their identities and ideologies. We address this question more fully later in this introductory chapter.

A third question follows on: a central debate about (new) social movements is whether they should be understood primarily in terms of instrumental, goalseeking logics, or in terms of an expressive, identity-oriented logic (Rucht 1990:162). This question concerning the nature of the groups and individuals involved in direct action is addressed in particular in chapters by Purkis, Seel and Plows, and Maples, while an instrumental logic is assumed by Robinson.

A fourth question, also concerning the nature of (new) social movements, concerns their social basis. From which sections of society do activists such as those involved in roads protests come? Do they follow general patterns often associated with NSMs, of being based in a ‘new middle class’? One prevalent image of the roads protests has been that most local environmental campaigns have come from a rather different background—affluent, often Conservative-voting, ‘Not in my back yards’ (NIMBYs). McNeish’s survey of the activists in local anti-roads groups contradicts this image. He shows that most activists were already members of environmental groups, particularly FoE. He also shows that there was a significant overlap between Earth First! and local anti-roads campaigns, and that most activists in Alarm UK (the national network of local anti-roads groups which evolved out of ALARM—All London Against the Roads Menace) were drawn from the new middle class and had a political identity that was leftist, but not socialist. These are important findings because they contradict the perception in media reports that local anti-roads groups were made up of wealthy country-dwellers who were either Conservatives or ‘apolitical’. Instead it seems that the social profile of local anti-roads campaigners matched the typical profile of NSMs.

Fifth, are debates within the movement about tactics and strategy. What forms of action are most appropriate or effective in achieving the movement’s goals? Are some forms of action (in particular violent ones) off limits? What is the relationship between the direct nature of the action and some of its inevitably mediated consequences? These questions are addressed in particular in the chapter by Seel and Plows, although the last of these questions is also discussed by Paterson. Another aspect of this sort of question is about relationships between direct action groups and others within a broader environmental movement—for example, mainstream environmental organisations and local protest groups. What are the connections between these groups? What are the tensions between them? What are the synergies between their different forms of action and organisation? The chapters by Cathles, McNeish, and Seel and Plows discuss these questions.

Sixth, in what sense should we understand developments in British environmentalism as peculiar to the UK? Are there commonalities between developments in the UK and elsewhere? What is the nature of the transnational connections between direct activists in different countries? These questions ask us to investigate the significance of direct action in environmentalism by interrogating whether it can be regarded as a generalised development in Western capitalist democracies, or particular to specific societies. This question is discussed later in this chapter, and also in the chapter by Rootes.

Finally, what impact has the rise of direct action had? In terms of conventional political science, what has its impact been on state policy-making? Robinson and McNeish both discuss this question very directly. Others discuss, more tangentially, the impacts on other environmental organisations, such as the way in which FoE and Greenpeace have been affected by the rise of direct action. But the impacts of direct action can also be read more broadly, in terms of challenges to broad cultural understandings within societies, and relationships between the state and civil society (see, for example, the chapters by Maples, and Seel and Plows). We emphasise this point in the conclusion to this introductory chapter.

These questions guide the organisation of the book’s chapters. Inevitably, some receive more attention in the book than others. In the rest of the introduction, we will focus on the first, second, third and sixth questions. Taken together, the discussion of the origins of direct action, debates concerning the nature of social movements, and comparisons between Britain and other countries provide a starting point for understanding the movement. This will complement the more specific questions raised in subsequent chapters.

The evolution of direct action in British environmentalism

Several chapters in this book make links between the current environmental protest and previous traditions of protest in Britain and beyond. Purkis suggests the new wave of radical activism can be understood as the latest manifestation of the millenarian tradition. Wall examines the history of different forms of action going back to the late medieval period.

But direct action became transformed as part of the transformation of environmentalism which occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The key organisations in this context became FoE (established 1969 in the USA, 1970–1971 Direct action in British environmentalism 5 in the UK) and Greenpeace (1971 in Canada, 1977 in the UK). Environmental direct action was initiated in Britain by FoE, who in May 1971 made their first famous bottle-drop on the London offices of Cadbury Schweppes. Richard Sandbrook, then the Director of FoE in the UK, describes how this direct action functioned to kick-start the FoE movement in Britain:

The early campaigns were a hotchpotch of things. But the whole thing didn’t really gel until Graham [Searle]—bless his heart—stood up at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where they were holding a public seminar about the environment, and said: ‘Well I’m going to take my bottles Saturday morning over to Cadbury Schweppes’. Schweppes had just announced they weren’t going to use returnable bottles for their drinks products and people had been vocal about this throughout the seminar. He said ‘Anyone else who wants to do it can come along, FoE is going to organise a bottle dump on Cadbury Schweppes’…. We got 50 yards of bottles quite closely set, it looked like a phenomenal sea of bottles. It made a terrific photograph. It went straight into the Sunday papers and that was that. People started ringing us up in the hundreds. We were away.

(Sandbrook, in Lamb 1996:38)

This action, and to a lesser extent the series of bottle-drops that followed it, attracted a large amount of newspaper coverage, although despite this no change was forced upon Schweppes. However, the interest in FoE that followed from this initial publicity allowed local groups and a membership scheme to be set up, so establishing a decentralised base that has grown and become distinctive of FoE. FoE followed these actions with the picketing of fur retailers, the sailing of inflatable whales up the Thames and, in 1979, they marshalled a Reclaim the Roads event in Trafalgar Square in which 6,000 cyclists took part to stop London traffic for half an hour. FoE’s style was to combine such direct actions with a strong emphasis upon detailed and well-researched scientific reports, which were used to lobby government. They also fought nuclear public inquiries and gave evidence in parliamentary select committees.

FoE were quickly overshadowed, however, by Greenpeace’s direct actions on the high seas. The Phyllis Cormack—Greenpeace’s first ship, which was later renamed the Rainbow Warrior—was first used to protest about US nuclear tests in earthquake-prone Amchitka in Alaska. Greenpeace then used similar tactics of bearing witness to protest against seal culling in Newfoundland and then to confront whaling fleets. In 1978 early Greenpeace UK volunteers in London converted the 23-year-old Sir William Hardy from a trawler into the original Rainbow Warrior campaign boat. Through their early campaigns against the Orkney seal cull, Icelandic whaling and British nuclear waste and weapons—and later the famous sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French Secret Service in Auckland, 1985, while it protested against nuclear tests—Greenpeace successfully gained media coverage and established an international reputation for daring sea-borne protests. As it became more difficult to attract media attention, more risky actions were pursued:

Public opinion and media perception of what was newsworthy had changed over the seventies. The Schweppes bottle dump was big news in 1971, but if we’d done it in 1981 it would probably have been completely ignored. Come the late seventies/early eighties, to get coverage of a media stunt you had to do something more dramatic.

(FoE campaigner, Czech Conroy, in Lamb 1996:75)

FoE consciously decided not to get involved in this logic of escalation, as they were committed to acting within the law, and Greenpeace became a kind of brand leader in environmental activism. It is significant that Conroy speaks here of ‘media stunts’ rather than ‘direct actions’. The original Greenpeace activists included experienced journalists who were influenced by Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about the mass media; their actions were therefore especially media-oriented (see Dale 1996). In the original Amchitka outing the crew returned to shore with only photograph stills, but by the 1980s Greenpeace was in the business of producing its own televisual images. Whaling actions would be filmed by activists and edited and narrated by Greenpeace before being released to the media.

Other notable events in the 1970s were the disruption of public inquiries by anti-roads campaigners led by John Tyme and actions against nuclear energy such as the non-violent occupation of the site of a power station at Torness in Scotland 1978. Yet, in comparison with most other industrialised countries, direct action against nuclear power in Britain was sporadic and small scale. The antinuclear campaign was overtaken by the growth of the peace movement after 1979 and this produced a more significant and extensive campaign of counter-cultural direct action based around peace camps. Although membership of environmental movement organisations (EMOs) grew apace in the 1980s, there was little evidence that this numerical strength would produce significant political change.

The new wave of radicalism

Extensive media coverage of environmental issues, the 15 per cent vote for the Green Party in the 1989 European elections and Margaret Thatcher’s apparent conversion to the environmental cause indicated in her speech to the Royal Society in September 1988, suggested that the green movement was on the verge of a major political breakthrough. However, by the early 1990s, many in the British environmental movement had realised that the belief in such a breakthrough was illusory and were coming to terms with the limits to achieving change through British political institutions. By the early 1990s the Green Party had returned to the political margins after its shock breakthrough in the 1989 European el...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1: Direct action in British environmentalism1
• 2: Environmental protest in Britain 1988–19971
• 3: Manufactured vulnerability Protest camp tactics1
• 4: Snowballs, elves and skimmingtons?
• 5: Modern millenarians?
• 6: Coming live and direct
• 7: ‘It’s just not natural’?
• 8: Swampy fever
• 9: Friends and allies
• 10: The vitality of local protest
• 11: The politics of the car