In the early hours of Wednesday 12 August, with dawn just breaking over the hills of the Peak District National Park, a small group of UK Earth First! activists moved onto moorland near the city of Sheffield. Within hours a camp was established, with workshop spaces, small café, compost toilets and bookstall – all ready for the Earth First! Gathering held in Britain every summer.

The Summer Gathering was on the edge of Moscar Moor, part of a six thousand hectare estate owned by the Duke of Rutland, who lives in Belvoir (said ‘beaver’) Castle in Leicestershire. Although widely used for public access, the Moor is mostly managed for the shooting of grouse—a small and dumpy red-brown bird that lives in open moorland. The date of the Gathering was no coincidence, as the grouse shooting season opens on 12 August (known as the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ by the blood sports community) and the following few days are usually a frenzy of shooting on Britain’s moors, with people paying hundreds of pounds for the pleasure of gunning down small birds.

The presence of the camp was no doubt an irritation to the Duke and his mates, but our occupation was about much more than the grouse. Over the past century or more, the persecution of some of Britain’s rarest birds of prey by gamekeepers and estate managers has driven them to the edge of extinction, with ever-stronger legislation still failing to control the trapping, poisoning and shooting of birds like hen harriers and goshawks. Moorland management for grouse also involves the drainage of upland peat and the frequent burning of heather to encourage new shoots for the birds to feed on.

Across the valley from the camp, I could see the stripes and squares of past burnings; not only do the fires cause local air pollution but they create a homogenous habitat that supports less biodiversity than an unburnt and more varied hillside of scrub, grassland and trees. Moorland burning also releases carbon into the atmosphere and, along with the drainage, dries out upland peat bogs. In their wet state, the bogs are not only more resilient in the face of wildfires, but absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Some commentators say that the UK’s peat bogs could capture more carbon than all the forests in France and Germany together – if only they were allowed to be wet and not periodically incinerated.

The other reason for choosing to hold the Earth First! Gathering at Moscar was the long-standing campaign by Reclaim the Moors, a Sheffield-based group. Reclaim the Moors have tried to purchase Moscar Moor from the Duke under a community right to buy scheme, but so far the aristocrat is strangely unwilling to let a small portion of his estate be returned to the community and managed for wildlife.

During the camp, our main worry was wildfires, leading to a series of logistical headaches and meaning all food was cooked off site and no one was allowed to smoke on the moor, or use a camping stove. All of this, plus removing all our toilet waste and bringing in enough water, took impressive organisation and co-operation. As ever, the Summer Gathering always feels like possibilities in action—how we organise without leaders, navigate some difficult conflicts, keep everyone fed and comfortable. It is also, to me, always filled with special moments: watching the partial solar eclipse through the pine trees and climbing up a crag to a stone circle to watch shooting stars at night, all of it in the company of incredible comrades both old and new.