In the global crisis, why has no one screamed for it?
Listening to some prime-time wildlife TV or browsing the “participation” page on the conservation organization website, you will think that land inequality either does not exist or has nothing to do with the emergency situation we face.
Far from being in power, such a space is more likely to pass on the responsibility to you-usually suggesting how to “re-plan” your garden. Mowing the lawn less. Throw some seed bombs. Plant bee-friendly borders.
Of course, this is true for all valuable efforts, but they are as effective as replacing light bulbs in responding to climate and natural emergencies. The message may also be “Keep quiet and don’t think about the crisis.”
privilege
Because even if you are really committed to persuading the British to demolish their terraces and go crazy, you can only restore 1.85% of the UK-the best estimate We have urban green spaces in the UK, and this figure also includes urban parks.
At the same time, what about the 2,000 nobles who own a shocking 30% of the land in England? They could have gotten out of the predicament completely. The talk missed the point.
But this absurd prospect of using the People’s Garden as the main stage of the British ecological rescue reveals a deeper level of land injustice.
One in eight households does not have Right to use There are no gardens at all, and ethnic minorities are most affected. In England, blacks are four times more likely to own a garden than whites—shockingly, 37% of people do not own a garden, compared with 10%.
Without questioning the importance of land ownership and power, the ecological mainstream obsessed with gardens will eventually put pressure on the least privileged and alienate them to take action.
Ocean
Since there is not a large NGO that actively pressures the country’s largest landowners to return to wildness, our priorities are clearly wrong.
The fact is that we have been here before but we have not learned.
Over the years, as carbon emissions have soared, fossil fuel propaganda has successfully shifted the responsibility from polluters to consumers.
When citizens lose sleep over their carbon footprint, twenty large polluting companies work happily day and night, extracting more than one-third of the greenhouse gases in the modern era.
This tragic pantomime — we, as the public, always seem to be playing a simple and innocent person — is staged again in our battle of the seas.
recover
When the rest of us sought eternal salvation in order to avoid plastic straws, Netflix took pirate Call the villain hiding behind us: fisheries.
To borrow a quote from George Monbiot, we once again find ourselves trapped in “micro-consumerism nonsense.” Today, with rewilding, the same sad story seems to be repeating itself.
Although it is essential for British consumers to switch to a plant-based diet and can save millions of acres of land from animal husbandry, there is no guarantee that this will translate into rewilding.
Biofuels, monoculture plantations for carbon offsets, or export-oriented meat and dairy industries can easily fill the gaps and provide huge landowners with profitable ways to keep our landscapes unspoiled.
It is not just consumers who are unfairly expected to bear the burden on their own. Today, smallholder farmers and tenant farmers are unfairly positioned as the opposition to natural restoration.
challenge
The farmer’s narrative of rewilding is just another kind of interference: if the agricultural history of the last century tells us anything, it is that small farmers will go backwards and do what the wider society requires them to do.
The reality today is that if tenant farmers really want to redevelop some of their land, this decision must ultimately be negotiated with their landlord.
So what should we do?
Shocked by the landowners’ ability to respond to the crisis almost silently–but inspired by pioneers like Guy Shurubsoe and Luke Steele who bravely reported the crisis–me and a small group Ecologists, experts and citizens think it is enough. We cannot stand by and let this land conspiracy continue.
This is why we established a new activity group called Wild Card. Our goal is simple: call on Britain’s largest landowners to rise to the challenge and re-wild.
collective
But beyond that, we have a broader democratic goal; to provide a space where everyone-garden or no garden, privilege or no privilege-can express their common interest in the future of our land.
Although our inner anger may force us to chase billionaires in the first place, we now know more than ever that it is time to build consensus around climate action rather than division.
This is why we initiated the wild card campaign by paying attention to the landowners of three ancient institutions in the UK, and even today, each of them plays a role in the moral, spiritual and educational management of our country: the royal family, the church and the University of Oxford.
These three huge landlords jointly own large tracts of land in our country, and more importantly, they symbolically influenced the decisions of other big landlords.
In June, we launched the Rewild the Royals event letter Supported by more than one hundred top scientists and public figures.Today, a petition Close to 100,000 signatures have been run in cooperation with 38 Degrees-please sign and share.
After thousands of years of failed struggles against land inequality, perhaps the climate crisis will finally materially prove our collective investment in land. Let us hope so, lest it is too late.
This author
Joel Scott-Halkes @joelscotthalkes is the co-founder and spokesperson Wild card activitiesThe Wild Card was launched in June 2021 and called on Britain’s largest landowners to urgently restore their land.
