Climate campers pitch up in Blackheath
View the Wharf's climate camp gallery here
Demonstrators are camping in the shadow of Canary Wharf to raise awareness about climate change.
Hundreds descended on Blackheath yesterday afternoon to set up a "climate camp", a tent-peppered community which will serve as a base, an open house and a home for workshops over the next week.
The location of the main camp was a closely-guarded secret on Wednesday morning, with participants choosing to "swoop" on the field from seven different assembly points such as Waterloo Bridge, the Bank of England and Stratford tube station. Within a few hours of their arrival at around 2.30pm, a fence and tripods had been erected and protesters were wrestling with tent pegs while fielding questions from TV crews.
Carl Van Tonder, 20, from the Oxford camp, said: "It's important that we're right near Canary Wharf and the City.
"It's full of those companies and those organisations that are driving forward climate change, such as HSBC, RBS and Barclays.
"One would expect to see a lot of spontaneous things going on over there in the next week."
The Metropolitan Police has promised to maintain a more relaxed presence at the camp following criticisms over its handling of the G20 protests earlier this year.
A spokesman said: "We're carrying out neighbourhood-style policing around the barrier. There's been no trouble."
Campers are setting up "outreach" groups to visit neighbours and explain the action they are taking, and have pledged to leave the site "better than when we found it". Climate camp is a vegan camp, which is adopting "non-hierarchical consensus decision-making" and skill-sharing, and using eco-friendly greywater recycling and solar arrays.
Curious passers-by are being welcomed into the camp, and a series of workshops will be laid on during the week on social and political issues and tips for direct action.
Beccy Quinn, 21, said: "We're going to be living as a community of people determined to take action.
"We're not asking permission from people like Gordon Brown, because that approach hasn't worked. And we're going to be living it as well as talking about it."
Leave a comment