Harriet Sherwood: The man orchestrating climate protest … from a shed in the Hebrides
In the past year, Roc Sandford has left the tiny Scottish island which is his off-grid home only once, to get a Covid vaccination. The rest of the time he has been alone with the birds, sheep and open skies. His days are busy but evenings can be lonely; cooking for one is “very sad”, he says. At the moment, he is enjoying some wine sent by a friend, eking out the six bottles by sipping from a thimble-sized glass. Despite his commitment to a close-to-zero carbon footprint, he misses socialising with friends and family. “I work very hard and very productively in this beautiful, beautiful natural environment, without the compromises one has to make elsewhere. But I can’t go to the pub.”
Sandford, 62, is speaking to the Observer from a small shed perched on a hill a few minutes walk from his house on Gometra, in the Inner Hebrides. Here he can pick up 4G from a mast on the neighbouring island of Coll, 20 miles away. The signal is his connection to the world, his four children and a network of environmental activists. Just now, most of his time is spent on Ocean Rebellion, a sister group to the climate action organisation Extinction Rebellion. It uses disruptive, non-violent actions aimed at tackling biodiversity loss, overfishing, the impact of the climate emergency on the ocean, and deep-sea mining.
“The oceans are dying, and if they die, we die. Ocean
Rebellion has been set up to help stop it,” says Sandford….
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