Richard Grindle, CEO of Shropshire Wildlife Trust
Firstly can I thank everyone who has worked hard to campaign for nature in this election. SWT supporters have spoken at hustings, put up posters and banners, and challenged candidates - by letter and email, on the doorstep and on social media - to tell us how they will meet our five priorities for nature: bringing back lost species, enforcing the law on river pollution, funding wildlife-friendly farming, giving every child the best start in life, and tackling the climate emergency. And thank you to those who made the journey to London to represent Shropshire at the Restore Nature Now march on 22nd June – with 80,000 people and over 350 organisations the message could not have been clearer.
A poll conducted for The Wildlife Trusts at the start of the campaign found that most people (58%, in Shropshire) consider environmental issues to be as important as any other. It was disappointing to see how little airtime the main parties gave to climate and nature. Some candidates responded positively, and the major parties made some commitments in their manifestos – but nowhere near enough given the scale and urgency of the crises we face.
There is always hope. Tackling the climate and nature emergency will not be not easy but it can and must be done. There has been some progress: councils now have a legal duty to deliver nature recovery, ‘green finance’ is available to pay land managers to restore nature, and next week will see the first 70 young people graduate from our Environmental Leadership Programme. But without more resources and sustained political commitment we will not go far enough, fast enough.
We now have a new government; and a changed electoral map in Shropshire, with three brand new MPs out of five. The onus is on them to show that they grasp the seriousness of the climate and nature crisis, and to afford it equal priority with the other important challenges they face. The Wildlife Trusts are clear that we need 30% of land and sea to be connected and protected for nature’s recovery by 2030, and this new parliament will sit until 2029, so the next election will be too late. This government and these five MPs must act now, and we in Shropshire must leave them in no doubt as to the consequences if they do not.