Your say / Nature
‘Restoring nature is about restoring hope for the future’
Jobs, travel, health, local services… It’s not hard to come up with a list of things you’d expect regional mayoral candidates to be campaigning for right now.
And as their literature plops through your front door with the pizza flyers and bills, you probably wouldn’t expect nature to feature prominently in their mini manifestos.
Which is a little strange. We are a nature-loving region in a nature-loving country. We are the most nature-depleted nation in the G7. And nature underpins everything – including the economy itself.
is needed now More than ever
Look after nature, care for the environment, and our rivers are cleaner, our soils are healthier, our air is better to breathe and our communities more resilient to climate shocks.
It’s also completely understandable. The person queuing outside a food bank probably won’t be thinking about nature, neither will the pensioner struggling to pay their fuel bills. In the hierarchy of immediate needs and life pressures, why should nature be front of mind?
At Avon Needs Trees, our campaign Nature is Lush challenges mayoral candidates to commit to nature-positive action.
Our thousands of volunteers tell us how planting tens of thousands of trees isn’t just about leaving a legacy for future generations, it’s about the here and now. For example almost all of them report improvements to their wellbeing, including climate anxiety.
For sceptics who question whether 150,000 trees can make a meaningful difference to a slowly unfolding global catastrophe, it’s worth remembering how local action leads to local benefits.
The Environment Agency’s modelling shows our new trees in the Chew Valley will reduce flood risk in neighbouring villages and towns.
With 75 per cent of our food crops depending on pollination, the pollinators buzzing around our new wildflower meadows are good for local farmers.
And Avon Needs Trees’ new project, Lower Chew Forest, wouldn’t have been possible without support from the West of England Combined Authority, helping provide dozens of new green jobs.
As B24/7 just reported, the race for the mayoralty is too close to call. Election day looms on May 1. We invite you to join our Nature Is Lush campaign, scrutinise the candidates’ commitments to nature and the environment, and register your vote.
As the first part of the country to publish a Local Nature Strategy and Bristol declaring an ecological emergency in 2020, the West of England is already leading the way. Your voice and your vote can help secure this leadership for the next four years.
Restoring nature isn’t so much about targets or regulatory compliance. Nature is our life support system. So restoring nature is about restoring hope for the future.
Read more about the Nature is Lush campaign on the Avon Needs Trees website, sign the petition and spread the word: avonneedstrees.org.uk/weca-mayoral-campaign
This is an opinion piece from Mark Funnell who is chair of Avon Needs Trees, communications and campaigns director at the National Trust and has worked in environmental communications for 25 years.
If you would like to write an opinion piece for the website, please email ed-team@bristol247.com and we will get back to you to outline next steps.
Main image: Mark Funnell
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