Saturday 22nd June 2024, at 12 noon, a group of concerned citizens from over 300 organisations gathered together in London, assembling along Park Lane from Marble Arch to the start of Piccadilly to march in peaceful protest 'Restore Nature Now' to highlight the alarming decline of UK's nature, one of the most depleted in the world!
Those leading the protest, Chris Packham, Caroline Lucas, Nemonte Nenquimo (indigenous activist and author) Emma Thompson and Dale Vince took about an hour with the front of the marching crowd, myself included, to reach Parliament Square. Estimates were between 60,000 to 80,000 people who joined from such a wide and diverse range of organisations (think National Trust with Just Stop Oil), it is a wonder that all of them came together under one banner, with one purpose, to highlight how desperately nature needs restoring and protecting to help us combat biodiversity loss and the climate crisis.
When we reached Parliament Square, Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin opened the proceedings on stage and what followed was an inspiring list of speakers, such as Liz Bonnin, president of the Wildlife Trusts and Dr Amir Khan (a GP and President of the RSPB) who had insightful understanding about our reliance on the natural world, for our both our physical and mental health. Feargal Sharkey, musician and passionate campaigner for our rivers was excoriating about the state of our fresh water supplies in the UK, pointing out how inadequate legislation is in protecting our water in the face of off-shore profit making companies.
There was also a humble reminder from Nadeem Perera about the need for a diversity of voices and ideas, a working together of those both academically and non higher education trained to come together for the restoration of nature, as he humorously said about a degree holder speaking to someone like himself (without formal education): "include us in the conversation because we have great ideas, we have great input and great contributions that are often a lot cooler, but together guys we are more creative, we are stronger and we protect nature."
To see the other valuable contributions from the other speakers, the day's events are linked below:
References
List of all the environmental and nature organisations that came together:
Some of the other organisations with writeups about the day:
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