This email is an invitation to join us for a weekend of workshops on Saturday 31 August and Sunday 01 September. If you’ve thought about getting involved with taking action for nature where you live and don’t know where to start, then this might be for you so read on.
The right to roam is just one important step to reversing the centuries old practice of extracting too much from the land for the accumulation of wealth and recreation for a very limited few.
Having a right to roam means that even though we don’t own the land, we can nurture a sense of collective belonging and responsibility. In other words, we’ll repair our relationship with nature and feel compelled to care for it. Without this first and crucial step, what happens on the 92% of land that we’ve no legal right to access goes unseen and unchallenged. All the while, the state of nature continues to decline.
Despite this, we’ve found that hope exists in the actions and determination of people who have decided to be a guardian for nature – without asking for permission first or having it in their job title. Groups like Friends of the River Wye, Moorland monitors and Sheffield Tree Action Group have been an inspiration to us. These groups are not landowners, they’re not legislators, governmental bodies or huge NGO’s. These are people who have come to care about places and the wildlife that lives there and are making a huge difference. The Sheffield Tree Action Group for example, is a group of residents who organised so that trees in Sheffield wouldn’t succumb to the councils chainsaw – and they won.
It’s not easy to start a big action or campaign from scratch if you’ve never done it before. A bit like knowing how to do a tax return, there’s a lot of tools and useful information out there that we’re not taught, and that includes how to campaign and to be a guardian for nature.
The event
We’ve paired up with our friends at Lawyers for Nature, Wild Justice, Wild Card, River Action and Trash Free Trails to deliver a Wild Service in Action weekend; we’ll be sharing our knowledge and experience of campaigning.
Workshops include things like understanding your rights, on how to build an inclusive campaign, how to tell compelling stories, spotting wildlife crime and using social media effectively. You’ll find details of all the workshops and more information here.
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