The term eco-warrior is a self-description for an environmental activist that adopts a 'hands-on' effort to save or salvage a plot of land, or to advance some ecological ideology. In the UK it was the media that coined the term in the 1990s, a label that many people actively taking ecological direct action resisted, for philosophical reasons.
A common symbol of an eco-warrior is the Eco Warriors Flag.
Another use of the term refers to an environmental activist who engages in illegal activities, also known as eco-terrorism. However, an eco-warrior is also someone who utilizes the courts to halt, suspend, or otherwise derail a human activity that the activist believes adversely impacts the environment.
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An eco-warrior can be someone as mundane and non-confrontational as a tree sitter or someone who engages in direct action, ranging anywhere from planting tree spikes into trees on public lands to keep the lumber industry from cutting them down, to sit-ins which occupy a corporate office. Also, an eco-warrior can be someone who engages in an environmental organisation (e.g. Greenpeace) or an environmental company that delivers safekeeping or improvements for the environment (e.g. directly by selling environmental products as environmentally friendly cars, or indirectly by carbon dioxide offsets). People advocating or recommending the use of fundamentally new green technologies (e.g. Amory Lovins, Amy Smith, Elon Musk, Robin Murray, and Bjørn Lomborg[1][2]) can also be considered eco-warriors.