‘We cannot allow this devastation to continue.’ Photo: Bill Oxford on Unsplash.
‘Millions of animals and plants are dying out.’
Racing green: Hilary Saunders appeals to our better nature
Did you see David Attenborough’s new BBC show, Extinction: The facts? How did it make you feel?
For me, the documentary revealed some heart-breaking truths. Millions of animals and plants are dying out because of the way humans are treating nature. Our demand for consumer goods, particularly meat and dairy produce, is causing massive environmental damage. The destruction of rainforests is increasing the risk of pandemics. We must protect and restore our planet now, so nature can protect us.
The investment decisions we make after Covid-19 will be crucial in tackling this ecological emergency. How much is our government willing to spend on protecting nature? What is its strategy for restoring degraded land, planting trees, reducing food waste, making cities cleaner, tackling plastic pollution, and making our buildings heat-efficient? When so much work needs to be done, and so urgently, it is appalling that we should be facing mass unemployment. This work is labour-intensive and most of it can be done outside at low risk of Covid-19. It would also enable the government, as host of the delayed climate summit COP26, to fulfil its promise to the United Nations to have an inclusive and sustainable economic recovery. We cannot allow this devastation to continue. While we need to put our house in order here in the UK, there is also an urgent need for an international response. We urge our government, our media and leaders of industry to support calls for ecocide to be recognised as a crime.
There have been some significant developments. The pope has spoken of the ‘ecological conversion’ he experienced through meeting indigenous elders in the Amazon and Canada. They helped him to see ‘the way all things connect. Everything is connected; everything is in relationship. In our human societies we have lost this understanding… this sense of roots, of belonging.’
In France, Emmanuel Macron has declared his support for making ecocide a crime, the first leader of a G7 country to do so. Belgium’s parliament will soon debate a bill to make it a crime in domestic and international law.
Greta Thunberg has donated €100,000 of her Gulbenkian Prize to the Stop Ecocide campaign. She has also joined Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai and 150 celebrities and scientists to ask governments to criminalise ecocide and ‘face up to the climate emergency’.
What does love require of us? It is time to connect, to share our grief and to urge our MPs to do everything they can to obtain government action. You could do this as an individual or as a Meeting. You may want to use some of this article in a letter to your MP. It is worth asking them to raise this issue with the Treasury, and to let you know their response. Please tell us how you get on!
More info on the Stop Ecocide campaign can be found at www.stopecocide.earth.
