An Oral History of the Environmental Movement in the UK, 1970 - 2020

影响和动员公众舆论，以实现态度、政策和行为的改变，长期以来一直是英国环境组织的主要目标。无论是通过基层倡议、全国性运动、民众抗议还是政策简报，他们都力求利用活动人士和社区的力量，应对我们这个时代的环境挑战，从气候变化和生物多样性丧失，到污染、可持续粮食生产和运输。参与此类运动的经历使几代活动家进入了政治和决策的不同领域，塑造了生活、职业和世界观。公共领域的环境运动与几代活动家的个人经验之间的关系为这个项目提供了起点。该项目的核心目标是通过口述历史的方法，创建一个可访问的、高质量的国家环境运动档案。通过这样做，我们试图为未来创造一种宝贵的资源，通过那些最密切参与的人的话语来记录环境运动的历史，包括那些贡献被忽视的人。该项目将利用口述历史作为研究实践的优势，特别是在长篇生活故事中，这些故事将行动主义的经历置于其传记和社会背景中，突出家庭、地区、阶级、种族、性别和代际之间的联系。通过创建一个新的、可自由访问的国家档案，该项目旨在提高人们对过去各种形式的环境问题的认识，丰富当代环境行动主义的集体记忆，并为未来的新思维和新形式的行动创造持久的资源。与大英图书馆声音档案密切合作，该项目将记录100位参与环境抗议，政策和实际行动的人的生活故事，自20世纪70年代初以来，从发电站的直接行动，通过议会工作，气候法案和联合国协议，到推广城市农场，自行车道和社区拥有的风力发电场。访谈对象将经过广泛的咨询，包括草根活动家和社会企业家，以及激进的活动家和主要环保组织的先驱——被遗忘的声音和领军人物。其中一些积极分子致力于国家和全球变革，而另一些则专注于地方层面。一些人为保护环境而战，另一些人则创造了一些全新的东西。他们都为自己的信仰而努力。这是一项重要的遗产。该项目将由一个研究团队负责，该团队将结合研究基层运动的学术专长和环保组织的高水平专业经验。主要合作伙伴包括大英图书馆的国家生活故事，地球之友和皇家地理学会。除了创建一个全新的档案，可以通过大英图书馆网站免费获取和搜索音频和文字记录，我们还将与我们在英格兰、威尔士和苏格兰的合作伙伴一起召开一系列证人研讨会和讲习班。一本可免费下载的、开放获取的书将在这项研究的基础上，通过活动人士自己的话语讲述环保活动的故事。将提供基于环境活动人士实际经验的教学和学习资源，以便在学校和大学两级激励和告知未来的积极公民。我们还将与《卫报》和BBC等合作伙伴和媒体组织合作，使项目材料以各种形式广泛传播，包括播客、博客、简介文章和专题报道。

Influencing and mobilising public opinion in order to achieve change in attitudes, policies and behaviours have long been key goals of environmental organisations in the UK. Whether through grassroots initiatives, national campaigns, popular protests or policy briefings, they have sought to harness the energies of activists and communities to address the environmental challenges of our time, from climate change and biodiversity loss to pollution, sustainable food production and transport. The experience of participating in such campaigns has led generations of activists into diverse realms of politics and policy-making, shaping lives, careers and world views. That relationship between the environmental movement in the public sphere and the personal experience of generations of activists provides the starting point for the project.The project's core objective is to create an accessible and high-quality national archive of environmental activism over the last fifty years through the methods of oral history. By so doing we seek to create a valuable resource for the future, documenting the history of environmental campaigns through the words of those most intimately involved, including those whose contributions have been overlooked. The project will draw on the strengths of oral history as a research practice, especially in long-form life stories which situate the experience of activism in its biographical and social contexts, highlighting links between family, region, class, ethnicity, gender and generation. By creating a new, freely accessible national archive, the project seeks to contribute to a greater awareness of the diverse forms of engagement with environmental issues in the past, to enrich the collective memory of contemporary environmental activism and to create a lasting resource for new thinking and new forms of action in the times to come.Working closely with the British Library Sound Archive, the project will record life story interviews with 100 people involved in environmental protests, policies and practical action since the early 1970s, from direct actions at power stations, through parliamentary work, the Climate Act and UN agreements, to the promotion of city farms, cycle ways and community-owned wind farms. Interviewees will be selected after extensive consultation and will include grassroots activists and social entrepreneurs as well as radical campaigners and pioneers of major environmental groups - forgotten voices as well as leading lights. Some of these activists worked for national and global change, while others focussed on the local level. Some fought to protect their environment from destruction, others created something quite new. All have worked for what they believed in. This is a heritage that matters. The project will be delivered by a research team combining academic expertise in the study of grassroots movements with high-level professional experience in environmental organisations. Key partners include National Life Stories at the British Library, Friends of the Earth and the Royal Geographical Society. In addition to creating an entirely new archive, freely available and searchable in both audio and transcript form via the British Library website, we will convene a series of witness seminars and workshops in collaboration with our partners in England, Wales and Scotland. A freely-downloadable, Open Access book telling the story of environmental activism through the words of campaigners themselves will be produced on the basis of the research. Teaching and learning resources based on the real-world experience of environmental activists will be made available in order to inspire and inform the active citizens of the future, at both school and university levels. We will also work with partners and media organisations such as the Guardian and the BBC to make project material widely available in a variety of forms, including podcasts, blogs, profile articles and feature stories.