My new office was exciting if a little anarchic, and a culture shock. Despite my lack of lobbying experience, I got the £10,000-a-year job.įriends Of The Earth was founded in Britain in 1971, inspired by the American environmental movement. Just before I left for Brazil I had applied to work on Friends Of The Earth's rainforest campaign. I was passionate about wildlife, and kept budgies and cockatiels. I was brought up in a council house in Oxford, where my father was a British Leyland worker. Little in my childhood marked me out as a future activist. It has been a wonderful job, but I need a change. To prop up the bar talking to pop stars, barrack American politicians or discuss climate change with Madonna over lunch. I plan to continue with my life's work, but it will be someone else's job to front the organisation. This year I will be stepping down as Friends Of The Earth's director. Sometimes the famous and powerful help the cause at other times they just provide a lot of hot air.Īnd for all their eco-rhetoric, too many decisions by the Labour Government have been cowardly and lacking in vision. These days, however, everybody wants to be green: big companies, Prime Ministers and celebrities. Neither did I know I would be obliged to take supermodels on trips to the rainforest or be held at gunpoint by panicking Swiss policemen.
When I started working for Friends Of The Earth 18 years ago, I had no idea green campaigners did that sort of thing. I confronted Banks as he emerged from the chamber, asking why he had been so destructive. The then Tory MP for Southport had talked for so long that the Bill ran out of Parliamentary time. I had sat in the Commons watching Matthew Banks wreck a Private Member's Bill designed to protect wildlife habitats. But that morning in 1996, something snapped. It isn't every day you chase a Conservative MP down the corridors of Parliament.
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