ECO-WARRIOR Alex Hartridge has been threatened with death by fishing trawler men, stormed British nuclear installations and thrown herself in front of ocean-going tankers.

She has even been prepared to strap herself to the leg of an Atlantic oil platform for six days to make the point.

Despite being just 25, petite and softly spoken, the Hampshire campaigner has been a member of Greenpeace for more than a decade and has been willing to go to any lengths in the battle to bring environmental destruction to the atten-tion of the world.

"Right from the age of 11 when I was seeing whales being killed by the whalers and then watching the protesters trying to stop it I knew I had to get involved,'' she says.

Rather than being motivated by some kind of teenage rebellious streak against her upbringing, her family - who founded Hartridges, the soft drinks producer - positively encouraged her.

"It was my uncle Christopher who opened the door to working with Greenpeace, after he bought me my membership of it for Christmas one year,'' she adds.

It was these small beginnings that led Alex to join the crew of a tiny "pod" and live for almost a week in 1997, tied to the BP Stena Dee oil platform at the Atlantic Frontier, as part of the ongoing protests against the oil industry by the organisation.

To some it will sound somehow glamorous - to others it would seem like the biggest nightmare possible - to Alex the hardship it brought was the last thing she was thinking about.

Having said that, even she admits the experience in the pod was supposed to have been a lot shorter. "We were only supposed to be up there for a day, and I was asked to take the first shift,'' she remembers. "But as soon as we got up there, our support vessel realised it was going to be just too dangerous to do the transfers of shifts and it was there we stayed.''

,Alex will probably soon be casting her mind back on it with a wistful look in her eye - since she is facing her biggest challenge yet.

And this time it is in the cause of solar energy and her determination to bring its real benefits to our attention.

Early next year, Alex will be heading for one of the most inhospitable places on the planet - Antarctica - with a small exploration team.

Using only solar power - to run things like a satellite phone and computers - they will carry out work to see whether even in these conditions, the energy of the sun can be harnessed.

It is entirely Alex's idea - but this is no hare-brained scheme. Despite being a mild-mannered, gentle soul, her determination and enthusiasm has attracted some of the world's best people in the business.

For a start Southampton environmentalist and broadcaster Chris Packham is backing her cause - along with the world-famous award-winning polar explorer Robert Swan.

As Chris says, solar energy is something we should all be serious about, before the ongoing environmental damage through the over-use of fossil fuels becomes irreversible.

And he believes Alex can be a big factor in rais-ing public awareness, through the fact she is willing to put herself through the hardship of living in Antarctica.

"I believe Alex has come up with a great idea to do this," he says. "After all if she can use it, or attempt to use it in Antarctica and prove it works, then it will go a long way to show how it can be viable for us in this country."

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.