The Greens' secret weapon: high society eco-salons

Environment/ nobles enter fray

THE Greens are marshalling their forces. Not in draughty offices or dusty squats, but at the vast Gloucestershire estate of the Marquess of Worcester.

This weekend leading figures of the environmental movement have been gathered together by the Marquess's wife, the former actress and model Tracy Ward, to talk tactics about taking on multinational oil companies and supermarket empires.

The Marchioness's guests in the lush surroundings of the Beaufort estate, home of the Badminton horse trials, include Hugh Raven, head of Safe Alliance, the sustainable agriculture lobby, and Ed Mayo, director of the Green think-tank, the New Economics Foundation, who will sit down to discuss, among other issues, "globalisation", which Lady Worcester considers the greatest threat to the environment, food quality and jobs.

In another age, the aristocracy were famed for their gatherings of writers and painters. Today, Lady Worcester is becoming known for her "environmental salons".

"They are private," said Lady Worcester, "They are for ecologists who spend their whole lives fighting to help the world, even sleeping in their offices. I want to see the whole lot unite to fight globalisation. I want the experts to come up with new ideas in a really pleasant environment."

The Marchioness is one of a growing band of people using society connections to put Green concerns on the political agenda. Tessa Tennant, daughter- inlaw of Lord Glenconner, founder of the UK's first Green investment fund and head of Green and ethical investments at NPI Provident Pensions, is one of the more influential of these.

"I don't think the Greens are particularly effective at mobilising the Establishment," she said. "There is no fluency there or recognition of the importance of the social circuit."

She, like Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, is on Tracy Worcester's guest list. Another who features among the throng of conservationists with money and influence is Teddy Goldsmith, founder of Ecologist magazine and author of 5,000 Days to Save the Planet . His younger brother, financier Sir James Goldsmith, is also a generous donor to environmental causes.

But it is the Marchioness of Worcester's London townhouse, say friends, which has become the "environmental salon" where Cabinet ministers and Whitehall mandarins hob-nob with Green activists at "off the record" dinners.

Past guests at the fortnightly occasions have included William Waldegrave, Agriculture Secretary, Brian Mawhinney, Transport Secretary, and Sir Terence Burns, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. Sharing their tables were Sir Jonathon Porritt, Charles Secret, of Friends of the Earth, and Sir Crispin Tickell, former ambassador to the UN and the man credited with convincing Lady Thatcher that Green issues were important. It is Sir Crispin, chairman of Earthwatch Europe, insists Lady Worcester, who acts as the vital link between Whitehall Number 10 and the Greens.

Lady Worcester remains modest about her role as the environmentalists' most well-connected advocate. "I enable people to meet. I'm not someone who will come up with new ideas. I'm not a scientist," she said. "I try to work as a networker between the environmental groups that do the research and the people who ought to know about it."

Others, however, say that the woman who last year joined New Age travellers to protest over the felling of trees near Bath, is a far more vital force.

"She's very important because people in the movement are rushing around so much they rarely have time to sit down and consider strategy," said Robin Maynard, Campaign Director of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming.

Among other seasoned Green campaigners, equally at ease on an anti-roads protest as at Royal Ascot, is Alan Clark, the former Tory MP and squire of Saltwood Castle, a vegetarian and an outspoken critic of live animal exports. Joining him in his criticism of veal calf exports is David Shepherd, the painter and conservationist who has raised pounds 2.5m for endangered mammals. He plays down how useful his social connections are in his environmental work, but his parties are a famous mix of Tibetan monks, royals and eco- friendly media types, such as Joanna Lumley.

Teddy Goldsmith's son-in-law, Mark Shand - brother of Camilla Parker Bowles and former escort of Bianca Jagger and Marie Helvin - has taken up the cause of the Asian elephant.

While titles and connections have proved an asset to the Green movement behind the scenes, on the battlefields they have raised pierced eyebrows. At a roads protest last year near Bath, wailing eco-warriors were joined not only by the Marchioness of Worcester but the Princess of Wales's stepbrother, Rupert Legge.

The drum-beating was mom-entarily pierced by the shrill tones of Judith Bentham-Insdale, owner of a Bath art gallery, who announced excitedly that "Bunter" might also make an appearance at the protest. Who exactly is Bunter, wondered the seasoned protestors? "Oh, the Marquess of Worcester," she explained. "He might pop down, too."