Supporters of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are preparing to travel to Parliament to call on MPs to secure ambitious new laws which will halt nature’s decline and secure the recovery of wildlife and natural places across the UK.
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust volunteer, Gill, will travel to Westminster on Wednesday 26 June. There, she will join over 14,000 people from across the country – including Wildlife Trust supporters from other regions – from school children, young people and wildlife volunteers to farmers, councillors and doctors – urging MPs to back immediate action for wildlife and climate change.
The organisers of The Time is Now mass lobby are calling on politicians to ensure the upcoming Environment Bill includes ambitious targets for wildlife and a legally-binding Nature Recovery Network. It will also call on politicians to support immediate measures aimed at achieving ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions, following the Government announcement that it will set in law a target to achieve this by 2050.
Gill, who who is travelling 142 miles by coach, said:
“We depend on the natural environment for everything: from agriculture, to the places we work, live and relax in, to the very air we breathe. The actions we have taken over the last 100 years are catching up with us and having drastic effects on our natural world, and consequently, us. According to leading climate experts we have just 12 years to reverse the damage we have done, to save species we are destroying and to preserve the planet for future generations.
The urgency needed to protect our environment is higher on everyone's agenda now, and children are out of school protesting for their future. I volunteer regularly in a practical way for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, but felt the need to add my voice and personalise the arguments for a stronger Environment Act to my local MP. Sometimes the force of numbers on a march or petition is important, but sometimes a direct one to one approach is essential to give more meaning to the message. That is why I’ll be joining The Time is Now lobby on 26th June – to ask my MP to act now.”