She's a rebel - with a cause

But this summer Amber, 25, from Brighton, spent three and a half days perched precariously at the top of a 25m-high crane.

It was the latest in a series of high-profile environmental protests which have seen Amber climb on to an oil rig in the Atlantic, scale ships, chain herself to cranes and dump genetically modified food in Downing Street.

Greenpeace campaigner Amber is part of a team of supporters of the pressure group involved in "direct action" protests around the world to highlight environmental causes.

In February, she hit the headlines and was arrested for hijack after boarding a ship carrying 60,000 tonnes of GM soya off the coast of north Wales.

She used ropes to climb the side of the ship from an inflatable boat and spent 17 hours in freezing weather chained to a hatch before police boarded the vessel, cut the chain and arrested her.

It is difficult, often potentially dangerous work, which has earned Amber a criminal record and given her family countless scares.

But she is totally committed to the cause and Greenpeace has become a way of life to her.

She cares passionately about the environment and nothing will make her give up her campaign work - not even her fear of heights.

Amber, who lives in the Hanover area of Brighton, said: "I have always had a fear of heights but I am working through it.

"The only reason I can do what I do - climbing on to ships and abseiling down cranes - is because I feel so strongly about the issues and want to take part in the action. That is what spurs me on.

"For three and a half days on a crane in Portugal this summer I kept looking over and thinking 'am I going to be able to abseil down at the end?'. I did it because I knew I had to.

"I was originally arrested for breach of the peace after the action on the soya ship and then it was changed to hijack.

"It was like 'they've got to be joking', hijack sounds like somebody holding up a plane, not Greenpeace protesting against soya. I was shocked."

Police later decided against taking action and Amber was not charged.

As a child growing up in first Hastings and then Devon, Amber loved playing out in the countryside and spent as much time as she could outdoors.

Her interest in nature and environment grew from there and when she was 16 helped to set up a Greenpeace group in Dartmouth.

Initially, her main tasks were giving out leaflets, raising money, and running stalls - anything to raise awareness of the work of the organisation.

But as Amber became more involved she wanted to play a greater role in the national organisation and her first taste of direct action came when she joined a mass protest against French nuclear testing outside Chequers, where the then prime minister, John Major, was entertaining French President Jacques Chirac.

When she moved to Brighton to go to Sussex University, Amber became a volunteer at Greenpeace's London headquarters and took part in protests again oil exploration in the Atlantic, chaining herself up in a barrel outside the offices of oil company, Conoco, and climbing on to a BP oil rig.

Now she devotes as much time as she can to campaigning, fitting it around her studies at Sussex for an MSc in environmental change.

Every summer, she goes to sea on the MV Greenpeace ship and is just back from a two-month trip campaigning against the illegal and destructive logging of tropical hardwoods, which involved protests in Portugal, France and Germany.

It was during this trip that Amber and three other campaigners spent 89 hours strapped to two cranes on a ship carrying hardwood timber from Africa.

She had barely room to move or sleep, perched on a platform measuring three metres by one metre which she shared with another protestor at the top of the crane.

But as a veteran of so many protests Amber knows the tricks of the trade - she took along cards and a homemade backgammon set to keep boredom at bay during the sit-in and put her her hair in what she jokingly refers to as "action plaits" because she knew it would not get brushed for days.

She said: "We lived on chocolate, muesli bars, nuts and digestive biscuits and we celebrated each 24 hours that we were up there with carrot cake.

"It did get boring at times but we were watching the wood being unloaded from the ship and, when we were dreaming of a nice fresh salad or a chilled bottle of wine, that kept in our heads why we were there.

"My parents and my sister worry about me but they realise now they are not going to stop me and I think they are quite proud of me.

"Some of the action we take might sound dangerous but we are very safety conscious. We have good equipment and back-up and we do everything to minimise any risks. I am part of a team and we work well together - we have to trust each other in dangerous situations."

The protesters received huge Press coverage in Portugal and came down after the Portuguese government agreed to enter into talks about illegal logging.

Here direct action by Greenpeace campaigners fails to attract the amount of media coverage it used to and there is a view that the public is getting tired of it.

However, Amber is convinced there is still a place for such protests and says sometimes it is the only way to get a message across, although she points out it is only a small part of Greenpeace's work.

Action against GM food did attract wide media coverage, reflecting public strength of feeling on the subject.

The campaign to protect ancient hardwood forests is one of the issues she feels most strongly about, particularly after a visit to Brazilian rainforests last year which helped pinpoint some timber companies breaking the law.

She said: "I saw great swathes of the rainforest which had been destroyed and left as scrub. It was very depressing.

"You hear the statistics about an area the size of so many football pitches being destroyed but it is not until I saw it with my own eyes I could really take in the massive scale of it."

Global warming and GM foods are two other issues close to Amber's heart and she stresses that everyone must do their bit to help the environment, without resorting to chaining themselves to a ship.

She said: "We have to do something now to protect the environment. We can't afford to wait.

"I think I am quite a passionate person and that is why I am so committed to Greenpeace.

"It is important that people get up and stand up for they they believe in and don't just sit back and talk about it.

"It is equally important whether you are just recycling cardboard boxes or glass or taking fewer car journeys a week.

"Different people can do different things. Not everybody can do what I can do. But it is important everyone does their bit, that's what makes a difference.

"Consumer power has made a huge difference with GM food. It has made the supermarkets sit up and take notice.

"I can climb as many GM ships as I like but that, in itself, isn't going to change things.

"It is public opinion and everyone taking a stand that counts."

l Brighton and Hove Greenpeace meets on the first Tuesday of every month at the Peace Centre in Gardner Street, Brighton, at 7.30pm. The next meeting is tomorrow.