Mary wants to devote herself to the green cause

In five days, the camp will teach Mary a range of skills for protesting, how to deal with violent situations and most important encourage her to bond with her fellow eco-compatriots.

Mary was inspired to join the camp by the Ventura river near her California home. Once full of trout, they are now dying from pollution.

"This river affects the ocean, everybody who lives here, the animals. It's our habitat, it's my habitat. By focussing on this issue, I feel maybe I can be more effective," Mary said.

"Now I don't know how to do that, so that's why I'm joining the camp."

Lessons for life

Women have come from across the country to attend the camp, which is hidden away on a remote Texan ranch. Only in America, could you spend a week learning how to demonstrate.

Instructors share their frontline experiences. All their tactics are non-violent, but they know what it is like to be on the receiving end.

During one demonstration outside a bank in San Francisco, Becky locked herself to a barrel of concrete. A security guard twisted her arm behind her back and then handcuffed her to a colleague.

The first thing Mary must learn is how to use her body as an obstruction - and how to prepare for the pain, without fighting back.

The necklock goes one

The instructors also teach Mary how to necklock herself to a wooden pole and to deal with her opponents' physical reaction to this. They pull her wrists back, pushing on her pressure points and twisting her hand.

Mary is prepared to undergo the discomfort and pain. "As long as I was really into something, I would put my life on the line for something in which I believe that strongly," she said.

Sheer stubbornness

At camp, the women also learn how to build a tripod to block a road.

Good times we shared

Instructor Cathy Berrie recently spent 75 days sitting in a similar tripod to stop a forest being destroyed in Idaho.

Cathie has spent the last six years on the road protesting, it's a hand-to mouth existence, often desperate, and it is hard not to admire her dedication, especially when most would regard her as crazy.

Her friend Kimber survived the winter by selling her blood plasma. What is it that keeps them going?

"Stubbornness, sheer stubbornness," says Cathie, "I'm not about to give up and say 'Here, you have it then'."

Tall task

But the women face an uphill struggle. Outside the camp in middle America, particularly the redneck meat-eating world of Texas, the environment is treated with indifference. Americans dislike anything that threatens their way of life.

In America, where news stories rarely last longer than a minute, campaigners are under constant pressure to put on more and more dramatic stunts. Star names like actor Woody Harrelson are often the only reason most journalists turn up.

In 1996, a group scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to protest at the destruction of Redwood trees in Headwaters, northern California.

But the women remain undaunted. By day five and the end of the camp, they feel a strong sense of solidarity. They've swapped tales by the campfire of past actions and ideas for the future. Mary has certainly grown in confidence and conviction.

"I guess just seeing all of the young people involved in the movement makes me hopeful. I'm really proud, it makes a big difference to me," Mary said.

The world may regard these women as alternative, even insane. But they see themselves as voices in the wilderness, to whom one day everyone will listen. They have learnt the skills. Performing them in anger will take more courage.