Swampy

This article is about the environmental protester. For the language, see Swampy Cree. For the sportsman with this nickname, see Anthony Hamilton (snooker player).

Daniel Hooper (known as Swampy, born 1973) is an environmental activist, sometimes characterised as an environmental protester or eco-warrior, from the United Kingdom. He was active in a variety of protest groups including the "A30 Exeter to Honiton Protest" and "Fairmile Road Camp".

Biography

He became a nationally known figure after spending a week in a complex series of tunnels dug in the path of a new extension to the A30 road in Fairmile, Devon, resisting attempts at eviction by police. Several people took part in the protest, but Swampy was the last one evicted. Swampy was originally from Newbury, Berkshire, the site of the protest over the Newbury bypass in 1996.

Swampy's subsequent fame included an appearance on the BBC comedy current affairs quiz Have I Got News for You, on 18 April 1997, when he briefly became the show's youngest ever panelist. In 1997, he took part in another tunnel protest intended to prevent the building of a second runway at Manchester Airport,^[1] and has also been involved with the Trident nuclear submarine protest camp at Faslane, Scotland. In 2006, Swampy was living with his partner and their three children in a yurt, a dome-shaped tent in 'Tipi Valley',^[2] a remote New Age commune at Cwmdu near Llandeilo in West Wales. In 2007 the Sunday Mirror newspaper reported that he was taking part in the climate change protests at Heathrow Airport.^[3] Swampy's presence on the protesters' site was dependent on his keeping a low profile, so his celebrity status would not detract from the protest. ^[4]

Image

Swampy was parodied in a Judge Dredd comic featuring "Spawny" who impeded the construction of a "Spaceport" in the same manner as the real-life eco-warrior. The story ends with the construction continuing unimpeded, with Spawny apparently being sealed alive under the concrete foundation, a reference to a public comment by Conservative minister John Arthur Watts that he would like Swampy to be "buried in concrete".^[5]

See also

• Environmental direct action in the United Kingdom

References

1. ^ War in the woods: a history of runway BBC Manchester
2. ^ Diggers and Dreamers - The Guide to Comunal Living in Britain
3. ^ Grant Hodgson (19 August 2007). "Swampy Joins Airport Camp". Sunday Mirror. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sunday-mirror/2007/08/19/swampy-joins-airport-camp-98487-19658350/. Retrieved 2 July 2009. 
4. ^ The return of Swampy: Underground eco-hero joins the Heathrow protest The Independent, 19 August 2007
5. ^ http://www.cbrd.co.uk/people/daniel-hooper/

External links

• Salon.com - article from 1997
• BBC about the Manchester Airport protest
• Another article about Manchester Airport
• Third Battle of Newbury in the press
• Guardian - Whatever happened to Swampy? (2003)
• Guardian - Whatever happened to ... Swampy? (2006)
• CBRD biography

Persondata
Name	Swampy
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Date of birth	1974
Place of birth
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Place of death