After five years of camps, composting toilets, vegan curry and run-ins with the police, Climate Camp is calling it a day.

There will be no camp for the climate activists this year and the loose-knit organisation will be disbanded in 2011. The decision follows a five-day meeting to reach a consensus.

In a statement, activists for the climate movement said the camp was being disbanded to leave room to "launch new radical experiments to tackle the intertwined ecological, social and economic crises we face."

The immediate reaction has been a mixture of excitement about the future and nostalgia for an organisation that, most agree, changed the way the UK talked about climate change.

Most camp graduates believe this was the right moment to call it a day. "There was a feeling that Climate Camp was committed to a certain kind of action, the annual camp, which is really a huge commitment in terms of energy and resources," said Kevin Smith, a key figure in the climate movement, who was at the Dorset meeting. "People from Climate Camp are now involved and helping to organise so many of the different movements around, I think people felt they wanted to be freed up to get on with new things."

He, like many others, is excited by the wave of political energy and engagement that he sees in the UK. "This isn't about people giving up on climate change. But most people feel that they want to focus more broadly now."

The Camp for Climate Action, to give it its full title, first came into being in 2006, after activists at the 2005 G8 conference in Stirling in Scotland mooted the idea. One activist remembers: "We built a camp up in Scotland, and had about 4,000-5,000 people there, and after we pulled that off, we realised that actually, now we had the infrastructure to try something like this. We had marquees, mobile kitchens, and the ability to organise, and this really seemed to be the moment."

Leo Murray was at the very first camp outside Drax coal-fired power station in 2006. "I remember just feeling so relieved that here were hundreds of other people who felt the same way that I did. Even though in the end we didn't shut down Drax, we left on a real high, because now we had a model."

The following year Climate Camp announced that it was going to target Heathrow airport. With the help of lawyer Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, airport owners BAA announced they would be seeking an injunction against a huge number of potential protesters. The subsequent case drew enormous publicity and, as Murray puts it, "was an absolute PR gift to the camp." In the event only three people were subjected to the injunction, the camp went ahead, and dominated the news for nearly a fortnight.

Subsequent camps, at Kingsnorth the following summer and then in Bishopsgate during the G20 protests in April 2009, were deemed equally newsworthy. "The media interest Climate Camp generated moved the subject of climate change right up the agenda in people's mind, and got people to really discuss the issues," said the Climate Camp poet Danny Chivers. "Before Heathrow, for example, I think people vaguely knew that flying had implications, but hadn't fully made the connection."

A number of Climate Camps set up in Australia, France, Canada and other countries are testament to its impact on an international as well as national level. Caroline Lucas MP said of its legacy: "Climate Camp has played a hugely significant role in raising awareness of the need for action on climate change – and through imaginative and inspirational non-violent direct action, has succeeded in scaling up the pressure on the government and industry to adjust to the realities of a changing planet."

One-time Labour leadership candidate John McDonnell MP told the Guardian: "I joined the Climate Camp when it came to my area to protest against the Heathrow third runway and I learnt more about climate change in the week of climate camp activities than from all the debates in parliament. The Climate Camp at Heathrow transformed our campaign against the runway from a local issue to an internationally renowned campaign, making a pivotal contribution in defeating the third runway."

The policing of the camps also became a national controversy. Critics of the camps complained that they were costing taxpayers millions, with the cost of the Kingsnorth operation alone estimated to be nearly £6m. Concerns about heavy-handedness and police undercover operations also became national issues.

But increasingly the "campers" have become involved in new movements, such as the student occupations, the forest sell-off campaign, Palestinian solidarity groups, and the national anti-cuts movement. Frances Wright, from the camp's legal team, said of the school walkouts last year: "The girl who organised the walkout at my daughter's school had been to Climate Camp that summer. People who have been to camp know how to organise, they have the skills set, and now I think you can see the impact all over the country."

Activist Mel Evans is looking forward to what happens next: "Climate Camp was always about more than just climate change, it's also about the political and economic context for climate change, and people from Climate Camp are now addressing those issues through UK Uncut and dozens of other campaigns. It may not be called Climate Camp any more, but the methods and the values will carry on."