Nature needs you
We all need nature. It is essential for our physical and mental wellbeing, our economy and our planet, but right now nature is in trouble.
Earlier this year, Earth Trust joined more than 150 charities and celebrities like Steve Backshall and Chris Packham in demanding a vote for nature at the next election. We asked you to add your voice to this call, and you responded. Thank you.
Our Nature 2030 campaign calls on all political parties to adopt five key policies for nature’s recovery in their election manifestos.
With six leading local charities, we have translated these into five crucial asks tailored for Oxfordshire, and we’ve showcased some inspiring examples from across Oxfordshire that could be expanded even further to help restore our county’s precious biodiversity.
How you can help
When you cast your vote next month, choose a future where Oxfordshire’s treasured landscapes and wildlife can thrive once more. To ensure nature tops your party’s agenda, look for:
- Dedicated funding to protect and restore our natural environment
- Plans to actively involve local people in conservation decisions and efforts
- Commitment to collaborate closely with councils to implement nature-friendly policies
We all need nature
From making our communities better and healthier places to live, to supporting farmers and dealing with the effects of climate change and pollution, nature plays a huge, but often unseen role in our everyday lives.
But right now, nature in the UK is in trouble. For many years our natural world has been under threat, often forgotten by decision makers and pushed to the fringes of our urban and rural landscapes.
Why nature needs our help now
Nature needs us to be its voice – and be loud.
The UK is one of the worst countries in the world for nature loss, with 15% of wildlife at risk of extinction. The iconic wildlife which call the UK home have seen their populations decline on average by 41% in the last 50 years.
1 in 3 of us don’t have access to good quality green space within 15 minutes of home. Those who need nature most – people from marginalised and disadvantaged communities – are excluded from a healthy, clean environment.
Despite this crisis, we are failing to meet targets to restore nature. In 2020, the UK only met three of out 10 global targets and had actually gone backwards on six targets.
These failures have a huge impact on all of us. Whether it’s the knock-on health impacts of increased air pollution and lack of access to natural space costing the NHS billions of pounds every year, or fewer pollinators and an absence of healthy soils putting farm productivity at risk, nature’s decline is bad for everyone.
The UK has committed to halt the loss of wildlife and manage 30% of the land and sea for nature by 2030, but time is running out.
Our politicians can no longer afford to see nature as a ‘nice to have’.
It’s our goal to give everyone the opportunity to experience the natural world – wherever they are, whoever they are, and whatever their background.
The decision to put this right is in our hands.
The commitments we need for nature
We have five big asks of politicians, to give farming for nature a pay rise; make polluters pay; create more space for nature; create more green jobs; and put a right to a healthy environment in law.
A payrise for nature-friendly farming – the farming of green space is under pressure. We need to double the support for farmers to make sure that they can deliver nature-friendly farming and nature restoration together – producing food as well as wildlife.
A Nature Recovery Obligation– enabling a transformation in businesses and their environmental decision making by making sure that businesses have nature and climate plans in place, celebrating those that contribute to sustainability targets, and setting new duties to drive private investment in species and habitats recovery.
Creating more space for nature, restoring more protected sites and landscapes but also supporting nature recovery close to where people work and play through the creation of new locations and improvement of existing spaces, designed for and with communities.
Create more green jobs, delivering widescale habitat restoration by transforming career prospects in the environmental sector – creating green jobs in urban, rural and coastal habitats and in species recovery – and skilling up communities to enable better environmental decision making.
A Right to a Healthy Environment, establishing a human right to clean air and water and access to nature.
Your vote is a powerful tool for change.
Together, we can ensure nature gets the attention it deserves in this critical election.
If not now, then when for nature?
The next five years determines whether the UK will be on track to net zero, halting loss of biodiversity and improving our environment and health, or not. CEO Jayne Manley looks at what needs to change.Oxfordshire Environmental Coalition Rallies for Nature
RSPB released the findings from their latest State of Nature report, reconfirming that the UK is one of the worst countries in the world for nature loss, with almost 1500 species now threatened with extinction. Add your voice to the petition to call for change.Want to know more about Nature 2030
Find out more here