Howard Johns, author and renewable energy pioneer, recalls that we had tree houses and tree walkways up to 15 metres high in these incredible oaks above beautiful streams. He was speaking about one of the anti road protest camps that appeared in Britain in the 1990s.
The entire community, all these quirky characters, would live together in the open fire, cooking every night, singing and sharing stories. Reports from other camps reporting horrific scenes of evictions would flood in. It was an amazing scene, with the feeling of complete determination to change things.
Johns was an environmental science graduate in the mid-1990s. He was also a full-time activist in early 20s and lived with hundreds protesters outside Newbury, southeast England. They were fighting to save thousands of trees from being chopped down for a large national road-building scheme.
In 1989, the Conservative British government announced a $19bn plan ($43bn to today’s money) for major inter-urban roads, motorways, bypasses and motorways. It declared this infrastructure project the largest in the United Kingdom’s history since the Romans.
The plan was meant to support economic growth through congestion, but it smashed through much of the UK’s most beautiful nature. It destroyed historic valleys, water meadows, woodlands, and grass-covered hills that are treasured by locals and protected as a part of their biodiversity and beauty.
Opposition to the loss in these pockets of nature was fierce. Parts of the UK were shaken by flamboyant and determined resistance from 1992 when construction began on the first road. A new type was born.
