Inspired by the Twyford Down protests of thirty years ago, in which a tribe lived on the wildness they sought to protect, Pens of the Earth founder Helen Salsbury explores the power and potency of peaceful environmental protests and the ripples they cause.
Whether it’s climate change, wars, intolerance or tinpot tyrants – it’s easy to feel powerless and afraid in the current world situation. Or to react with anger, desperation, bewilderment and grief. And the last thing I want to do is to invalidate any of these reactions.
But I will just note that strong emotions like these are what sell newspapers, trigger reactions, and cause social media posts to go viral.
There are other emotions and reactions, which don’t necessarily trigger the primitive brain as directly or as strongly, but which reach deeply, which ground and connect us, which offer hope and empower us.
The day after Trump was re-elected president, Chris Packham shared these words via social media:
“Things have just got a lot more difficult. Here’s what I think. I had no control over what just happened. None. But I do have control over how I will react to it. And I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter.”
The grip on my dreams!
Thirty years ago, Twyford Down was a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a protected Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which stood in the way of the motor car’s rapid progress and spread across our ‘green and pleasant’ land: cross-dividing it with grey, smothering it with fumes, breaking up wildlife corridors with high-speed roads that are frequently fatal for animals to cross.
When legal protest and appeals failed to sway Thatcher’s government from their expansionist programme of road-building, a group of young people, naming themselves the Dongas Tribe took up residence. The name ‘Dongas’ was taken from the local term for the drover tracks which ran through that abundant and biodiverse downland.
As well as creating protest art which still strikes home today, they swarmed the machinery, lay in its path, and ‘locked on’ by the neck to the bulldozers.
Imagine the commitment it takes to attach yourself by the neck, with a D-lock weighing more than a kilogram, while knowing that the men who come to remove you will not be gentle.
Because it was not gentle!
Peaceful protest is not always peaceful. As the defence of our natural birthright clashes against the ‘perpetual growth’ model of capitalism, both sides are escalating, with new laws to control and punish the protestors who will not go tamely home and wait for the temperature to rise.
I’m not claiming that everything protestors do is justified or even wise. In a movement this wide, with a conviction and commitment this big, there will always be fanatics on either side. There’s a delicate balance between taking people with you and alienating them. And as the Wildlife Trust says, we need to engage 1 in 4 people to achieve lasting change:
“Evidence shows us that if 25% of the population – 1 in 4 people – visibly take action, we create a social ‘tipping point’, which can change the behaviour of the majority and bring about change.” Dorset Wildlife Trust website.
Furthermore, it’s worth recognising that not all of us are ‘activists’ in the D-lock sense. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for us too. Because environmental protests are places of extraordinary connection, places that send ripples out into our wider world: inspiring, connecting, touching lives.
The environmental movement is versatile. It thrives in the earth itself, and new shoots spring up all over the place.
The roots and shoots of the Twyford Down uprisings spread far and wide: to other road and environmental protests, to the cancellation of two-thirds of Thatcher’s planned road building, and to the ‘Reclaim the Streets’ initiative.
As founder of the literary environmental collective Pens of the Earth, I can trace our lineage right back through the ‘Reclaim the Streets’ initiative to the Dongas Tribe living on the land they sought to protect.
The idea which sparked Pens of the Earth into existence came from a Friends of the Earth meeting, where (as a community reporter taking notes for an article) I learnt about liveable cities and about what it might mean to all of us if we stopped putting the car first. It was there I heard the phrase ‘reclaim our streets’ for the first time, and realised that there was a subtle revolution going on, a revolution that was all about small changes made at a local level wherever you lived; a revolution that was about individuals coming together in communities to create the changes we needed. This is what inspired our community of writers to found Pens of the Earth in 2019 and create stories and poems of environmental hope. Ultimately, this led to the publication of Wild Seas, Wilder Cities in 2024, a book which is sold to raise money for Seagrass Restoration.
Working in collaboration with environmental advisors, our writers took inspiration from real-life initiatives where people and not cars are given priority, where children and nature are given space to run and play; from the Sustrans ‘active travel’ and ‘school streets’ campaigns which focus on creating quieter, more pleasurable streets to walk, cycle and scoot on; and from other initiatives for nature and the planet: urban orchard planting, plastic-free endeavours, beach cleans, citizen science, wilding, and rewilding projects.
Gradually, with the realisation that it was all connected, our focus on the land spread out to our seas and rivers. In particular, we were inspired by the wonderful seagrass and seascape restoration projects taking place on our shores: cleaning the water, mitigating climate change, acting as natural flood defences, and restoring precious habitats for birds and marine life.
We came to understand how actions taken on land affected our rivers and seas – from river straightening, to agricultural run-off and sewage wastewater overflows – and to admire the campaign work of the Wildlife Trusts, Surfers Against Sewage, wild swimmers and other campaign groups who are seeking to protect and defend our rivers and seas.
While the clean-up of the Seine in Paris in time for the Olympics (which allowed wildlife and swimmers to return to it after 100 years of toxicity) is a torch-bearer for campaigns to restore and heal our rivers, it is by no means the only success.
You only have to view Surfers Against Sewage’s Water Quality Campaigns to realise how powerful individuals are when they come together to act in community. An important lesson from Twyford Down is that even in defeat, we rise. However tragic the loss of terrain is, it’s never the whole story. Each knock-back makes us stronger, and people power is a real thing. It may feel like governments aren’t listening, but gradually we wear them down. If enough people care and show they care, changes happen.
Since its inception in 2019, Zero Hour’s Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill campaign has sought to legalise ‘an integrated plan’ to enable the UK to meet its 2015 ‘Paris Agreement’ commitments and its 2022 Biodiversity COP commitments: to ‘cut greenhouse gas emissions really fast’ and ‘reverse the destruction of nature’. This has served as a rallying call for individuals and organisations all over the UK. With their cross-party approach, their open invitation for all political figures, scientists, faith leaders and organisations to become supporters, and their easy and friendly guidance on how to take small steps, Zero Hour has created a community of campaigners and challenged the narrative of the powerless individual.
So far, it has brought together “1,975 incredible organisations, politicians, and scientists from all parts of the UK”. Sponsored by Roz Savage MP and supported by 192 MPs and 54 peers, the updated CAN Bill was debated in parliament in January 2025.
Supporters were shocked and saddened when instead of holding a ‘closure vote’, which would allow the bill to progress to the next legislative stage of ‘Committee’, the debate on the bill was adjourned. However, this is where Zero Hour showed their resilience, their ability to dig in.
This is not a win/lose narrative, but another story of how the environmental movement just keeps on rolling. Because defeat is not an option. The ‘Real Change’ campaign followed, offering another chance to contribute, via emails and open letters, and to meet with MPs during the ‘Act Now, Change Forever’ mass lobby in Westminster on 9th July. And outcomes from these actions and from negotiations during the debate in January started to appear.
On 14th July 2025, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband MP, with the Environment Secretary Steve Reed MP present, delivered the first of an annual Climate and Nature Statement in Parliament along with a report outlining actions on climate and nature. In his speech, Ed Miliband acknowledged and thanked Zero Hour and CAN Bill Campaigners, saying ‘their role over a long period in pushing forward the bill has been important,’ and adding, ‘this is going to be a continuing process [of taking forward] these discussions’.
We press on!
Pens of the Earth is inspired by the positive, the small actions that everyone can take, and the inclusive and welcoming nature of the environmental movement, which says, ‘Yes, you. We need you too,’ and opens its arms.
As writers, poets, illustrators and speakers, we have the ability to spread ideas. Furthermore, we’re proud to be part of the ‘1 in 4’ taking action for nature. Since the launch of our book Wild Seas, Wilder Cities, due to the generosity of people with their time, their skills, and their consumer choices, we’ve raised over £4,000 for Seagrass Restoration in the Solent.
And finally, what we’ve learnt by engaging as creatives in the environmental movement is that there’s a rising groundswell of people all over the globe determined to come together to act on behalf of the planet and nature, using whatever skills they have. And they are driven by something more profound than fear: the ability to love and the will to survive.
Wild Seas, Wilder Cities is available as a paperback and an ebook. Here’s how you can buy it, lift your spirits and help to support seagrass restoration: pensoftheearth.co.uk/the-book.
