Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive

for rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in the year 2000 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is an environmentalist. His background is noble, his instincts radical.

After becoming the youngest Labour hereditary peer, he moved swiftly into office and served as a whip and as a minister in Northern Ireland.

He then abandoned conventional politics to devote himself to the issues that concern him most.

First, as President of the Ramblers Association and for the last 11 years as one of the leaders of Greenpeace.

Five years ago he famously led the campaign against the disposal of the Brent Spa drilling rig

and last year was charged with theft and criminal

damage after leading a dawn raid to destroy a field of GM crops. Prison and

controversy don't frighten the man whose calm exterior belies passionate convictions.

The lack of man's humility in meddling with these things is overwhelming, he says.

Now the Executive Director of Greenpeace, he is Lord Melchitt.

Toff spends night in jail. Very much grabbed the headlines last summer, Peter. It was a classic

piece of direct action.

How do you feel when you're doing things like that?

Well, a combination of things, I suppose, nervous.

Hopefully trying to

keep that in one's mind.

Of course, but when you say nervous,

are you nervous because you're breaking the law,

because as a well-brought-up chap you know Eton,

Cambridge ex-government minister that you're actively breaking the law?

...