They should put out as much information as possible to share knowledge with other camp organisers about how to avoid pitfalls and problems.

I did as I always do when attending protest camps, I waited to hear the site announced online so I would know where I was going. Some of us (especially us older people) just aren't adventurous enough to simply turn up and chance not being able to find out where we are going. The travel information on the website wasn't adequate. First it said meet at the convergence centre at the Quaker Meeting House in Cardiff to get directions to a nearby train station from where you can get to the camp. Then it said go to Aberdare train station and phone the camp for a lift at 10am, 1pm or 5pm. So, I bought a train ticket for Aberdare.

It was only when I was on the way and phoned the camp number for an update that I was told they were "having trouble holding the site" and I should go to Neath train station and get a local bus 158 to Dyffryn Cedwen and walk to the site from there, as they did not know if they could get a vehicle off the site to give people lifts.

Luckily, I phoned just before the train reached Cardiff, where I would have changed for Aberdare, and so I stayed on the same train and continued to Neath. But that was an extra £6 train fare.

I phoned again about half past three and was told that a few people had just got on to the site and that it looked safe to continue. But when I arrived at half past four, there were only about 20 people left in the field and the eviction was nearly completed. The eviction must have already been in progress at half three, but the person on the other end of the phone had somehow not mentioned it.

The announcement on the climate camp website that the site had been "taken" suggested it had been squatted. If it had been squatted, the planning, organisation and choice of site were unforgiveably poor. There is so much open land in South Wales that it would have been very easy to find a much less exposed, much more defensible site, with enough hedges to obstruct the police from spying. This site was on a bare slope clearly visible for some distance away, with only one entrance and exit which the police simply blocked. And if it was to be squatted, the organisers should have made sure they could have counted on at least a hundred and fifty people converging on the site at once to make sure of holding it; not the maximum of sixty people mentioned on the website.

But one of the campers from whom I was able to get information, by having a shouted conversation past two coppers who were blocking the entrance, said that the field had been rented from a local farmer who had suddenly changed his mind about it after the police had 'persuaded him it wasn't a good idea'. I'm inclined to believe that the site was rented. It would explain the lack of tripods or other obstructions to make eviction difficult, and it would also explain the other shortcomings of the location.

The camper also told me that the police had threatened to arrest everybody for aggravated trespass if they didn't leave.

This gives the lie to the statement the police gave to the media, and which was posted without any examination on the BBC Wales website, that the campers had 'willingly co-operated' in leaving the site so as to avoid damaging an ancient monument!

If it is true that the site was legally rented, then the camp organisers should have been prepared for the landowner to be mercilessly harrassed by the police. There was a similar problem with the No Borders Camp in 2007, which had to change locations suddenly after the first landowner was subject to constant visits by the Sussex Police, asking him the same questions about what the camp was about, what would be going on, etc. It doesn't need stating that almost no landowners are going to be political activists, or have any political awareness of the state's attitude to activism, so they are not going to be prepared for the inevitable harrassment from the fuzz. Or the probable lies they are going to be told about incurring legal problems if they let their land be used for a protest camp. Renting land from someone with no knowledge or experience of this kind of activity is going to be a major weakness from the start.

The campers clearly had no alternative site prepared, and there was no provision for text message alerts to find out what was going on. I did not relish the idea of being stranded in the back of beyond, in an area crawling with filth, which made camping rough inadvisable, so I trudged back to the bus stop and then got a train all the way back to Cardiff, the only place I knew I could be sure of getting a B&B for the night.

Discouraging people from arriving in vehicles was another mistake. They may not be environmentally friendly, but they make it possible for people to travel quickly and regroup at another site before the fuzz know what they're up to. Vehicles are also a damn sight harder to evict by force than people on foot carrying their tents on their backs! They do have a tendency to break down, get punctures, run out of petrol, get bogged down in the mud and so on. This is not the driver's fault, it's accidental, so they're not resisting eviction. And the police can't prove otherwise.

Maybe the Wales climate camp organisers failed this time because of naivety or lack of experience. Well, you can live and learn. I note the Edinburgh climate camp seems to be better sussed: they offer text message alerts to update people, and they are using different convergence points. This sounds like the method used in the J18 demo (London 1999) where the demonstrators followed one of four coloured flags, taking four different routes down various back streets where mounted police and vehicles couldn't easily follow, until they arrived at their destination. It worked wonderfully, and had the fuzz grinding their teeth in frustration.

Let's hope the next climate camp has enough people to hold the site, and hold off attacks by the state.