Roger Higman was born and bred in Oxford and became a keen cyclist
and birdwatcher at an early age. His interest in the environment
was stimulated by the first hand experience he gained of the
impact of major road-building while a studying geography at the
London School of Economics (LSE) - he was a tenant of the
Department of Transport, living in a house since demolished to
make way for the Hackney-M11 Link Road.
A few years after graduating in 1983, Roger became a volunteer at
Friends of the Earth
and was appointed to a paid position in late 1985. For the next
three and a half years, he worked to promote traffic calming,
cycling and walking - helping local residents campaign to close
rat runs and press for better road maintenance.
In 1988, he left Friends of the Earth to join the
Civic Trust
for whom he campaigned to promote community-based
regeneration projects in inner city districts like
Kirby and Brixton. He also moonlighted for the
Hackney No Through Road Campaign,
one of the many community groups that fought off road-building in the capital.
Roger re-joined Friends of the Earth in 1990 as Transport Campaigner
with special responsibility for the National Roads Programme.
For five years he fought road projects up and down the country
including those against the M3 through Twyford Down,
the East London River Crossing through Oxleas Wood,
the Newbury bypass and the proposed widening of the M25.
In September, 1995, Roger was appointed Senior Campaigner
(Atmosphere and Transport) for Friends of the Earth -
to head a small team of campaigners whose issues covered
transport policy, air quality, vehicle emissions and aviation.
In June 2000, following a staff re-organisation, Roger took
responsibility for Friends of the Earth's new enlarged
Climate and Transport team, whose responsibilities include
climate change, energy policy and campaigns against nuclear power,
as well as most of the issues covered in his previous role.
As such, Roger played a key role in Friends of the Earth
International's delegations to the world climate summits in
The Hague and Bonn in 2000 and 2001 and Friends of the Earth's
domestic campaigns over the Energy White Paper.
Roger lives in north-east London. In 2002 he completed a
part-time masters in European Politics, for which he received a
distinction. He has still never had a driving lesson, but does
have a renewable electricity tariff.
In early 2004, Roger was given two new, broad-ranging roles at
Friends of the Earth.
Firstly, he coordinates activity across the organisation to make sure
its environmental policies are consistent and to ensure they
demonstrate the many ways in which environmental limits are being broken.
Secondly, he is responsible for making sure that Friends of the Earth
develops and promotes practical solutions for each of the environmental,
social and economic problems that it tries to address. He is also the
team leader in Friends of the Earth’s New Economics and Trade team.
In 2006, Roger was appointed to the Senior Management team at
Friends of the Earth to coordinate its campaigning and lead work on
biodiversity.
Roger Higman was on the panel of the debate:
What Future for Environmentalism? in
October 2005.