The eco-warriors who became local heroes

A man in a harness is dangling from a tree house 60 feet above the ground. Just visible between the tall beech trees, he rips off the roof and pulls down the slatted walls, letting them crash to the forest floor.

He is dismantling the makeshift houses where he and fellow campaigners have lived for nearly a decade in the woods at Stanton Moor in the Peak District National Park. The wood is home to Britain's longest-running protest which, after nine years of occupation, is finally coming to an end.

Ruth Franklin 47, is one of many who left behind the trappings of conventional life to campaign against quarrying in the park. "I love this place and it's been my home for years," she says. "I'll be so sad to leave."

Her reasons for leaving are really a cause for celebration. The protesters first moved in after Stancliffe Stone, a stone supplier, attempted to reopen two mines in the park which would have devastated the landscape and threatened the Nine Ladies stone circle, a Bronze Age pagan site. Years of campaigning and court battles have paid off. Any day now they expect to receive a letter from the Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears, confirming that permission to quarry has been revoked.

The epic protest has come to be known as the Battle of Stanton Moor. More than 500 eco-warriors have come, joined the fight and gone since it started. Now there are just 15 left. They invited me to join them for some of their last days of occupation.

Their campaign headquarters, despite its ramshackle appearance, is surprisingly cosy. It is made from huge pieces of wood, tarpaulin and canvas, and over the years people have added a bar, bookcases, sofas, a sound system, a wood-burning stove and even a candelabra. To describe it as a camp no longer does it justice. It even has its own postcode.

There has been no shortage of locals keen to dismiss the Nine Ladies protesters as New Age hippies who should "go out and get a real job", but their achievement in saving this idyllic corner of Derbyshire has not gone unnoticed by their nearest neighbours. Geoffrey Henson, a pensioner whose home lies just outside the protest camp, admits that the onset of the dreadlocked army was a shock. But he says he has been pleasantly surprised. "We were a bit taken aback when we saw what looked like these scruffy long-haired layabouts arrive," he explained. "But they stuck it through all winds and weathers for nine years, which is more than we could have done."

A friendly vicar also charges their car batteries, and some well-wishers have let them use their showers. Not that they'd need one. Like everything in the camp, the washing facilities are intricately thought through. Behind my home for the night is a washing contraption made from a winch, a barrel and a strapped-on shower head. Around the corner there is even a bathtub heated by a wood burner.

Meals at the camp are cooked in a tin-roofed outdoor kitchen. Jav, a 35-year-old landscape gardener, is the self-appointed chef. Nothing annoys him more than "anarchists who can't wash pots". Rustling up a spicy vegan curry, he proffers the spoon for a taste. After I gulp it down, he decides it is the right moment to tell me the meal is all "skip food". Opening up a fetid barrel to show where his ingredients came from, he says: "Everything we eat comes from the bins behind shops."

The evening takes off when Daz, 41, one of the original three who set up the protest, arrives back. With an oversized, greying Mohican, punk clothes and pockets stuffed with beer cans, he looks an unlikely leader. But his dedication is impressive. "When I found out this place was under threat I decided to stay," he explains. "We're not monsters; we just don't want this country to get wrecked."

In those early days the threat of bailiffs was constant. A 2km network of high, rope walkways was built above the 40 acres of occupied land, and tunnels and emergency bunkers were dug beneath it. A caravan was suspended in the branches to make eviction near-impossible.

The protesters have lost three friends to this way of life – one from falling into the quarry, a second who drowned trying to cross the river and a third who was burnt alive when her treehouse caught fire. It was with this last incident in mind that I decided not to light the wood-burning stove as I bedded down for the night.

The next morning, protester Ben Hartley, 38, pondered, like his 14 compatriots, the end of life in their treetop homes. Many have no ties to the "normal" world of consumerism, jobs, mortgages and the credit crunch. "A lot of us have spent huge parts of our lives here, so we'll be really sad to go," he said. "It's the end of an era."

We shall not be moved: the protesters who carried on camping

Nine Ladies

1999-2008 Protesters moved in after attempts were made to reopen dormant quarries, threatening a Bronze Age stone circle.

Greenham Common

1981–2000 This anti-nuclear camp was started by a group of Welsh women who protested outside the RAF airbase and blocked nuclear convoys.

Newbury bypass

1994–1999 The country's biggest anti-road protest brought the campaigner Swampy to fame.

Parliament Square anti-war protest

2001 and ongoing Brian Haw set up his camp in protest at British and American foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was later voted most inspiring figure in the Channel 4 Political Awards.

Faslane peace camp

1982 and ongoing This is a peace camp, technically, not a protest site. But over the years, delegations from it have protested against military bases.

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