Yellowhammer dead at the side of the road © Shutterstock
#DefendNature: We Need You
No Nature. No Future.
Nature is under attack from plans by the UK Government to bulldoze thousands of laws that protect our environment.
A new Bill, officially called the Retained EU Law Bill (the REUL Bill), threatens to wipe away thousands of crucial laws which protect wildlife by the end of the year. This will lead to even more pollution poisoning rivers, more wild places at risk of being damaged – and potentially destroyed – and more wildlife threatened with extinction.
Campaign update: 15th May 2023
The UK Government had been forging forward with a ‘sunset clause’ on the Retained EU Law Bill that would bulldoze hundreds of important laws that protect nature and people at the end of the year.
But the Government has announced it will scrap the ‘sunset clause’ and keep many of these vital environmental laws. Your passionate postcards, emails and tweets to MPs have raised the alarm.
Read our reaction
Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says:
“We won’t be congratulating the Government for its decision to stop doing something it should never have even thought about in the first place. The Government’s Retained EU Law bill has been a shambles from the very beginning. Now it has ditched the ‘sunset clause’, which threatened to dismantle most Retained EU Law at the end of this year and posed an immediate threat to vital laws that protect nature and people. However, the huge problem posed by the bill still remains because it will allow future governments to revoke important laws at whim, whenever they want to.
“Ministers should never be given carte blanche to pick and choose which laws should be kept or binned without public consultation or scrutiny – that is fundamentally undemocratic. The uncertainty created by the Government over Retained EU Law has caused huge problems for business, as well as organisations working to protect nature. Ministers must stop seeing environmental law as a burden because it helps stop more sewage entering our rives and ensures food is safe to eat. Given the urgent need to address the nature and climate crisis, they should be strengthening protections, not ripping them apart.”
We won’t be congratulating the Government for its decision to stop doing something it should never have even thought about in the first place.
Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts
This is a huge shift from the Government, but we are concerned that some laws are still to be binned, whilst the Bill will continue to allow future Ministers, not Parliament, to revoke important laws at whim, whenever they want to.
Whilst environmental protections are under threat, we need to act together NOW to #DefendNature. Contact your MP below.
How you can help: step-by-step
Send your MP a postcard
Ask your MP to #DefendNature by sending a postcard that will land on the doormat of their office.
Write to your MP
- Download our template letter here
- Edit or add to the text to reflect your own concerns
- Find your MP here
- Send your letter by post or email to your MP
Climate march Nottingham by Leanne Manchester
Write to your local Councillor*
(*This impacts where you live and they need to speak up too!)
- Download our template letter here
- Edit or add to the text to reflect your own concerns
- Find your Councillor here
- Send your letter by post or email to your Councillor.
Why are The Wildlife Trusts and other environmental charities so concerned?
We believe the UK Government has launched a full-scale attack on nature – leaving wildlife unprotected by tearing up some of the most fundamental laws we’ve got.
New planning laws and ‘investment zones’ announced on Friday 23rd September represent a ‘free-for-all’ on nature by weakening the laws previously in place to protect it from bulldozers and concrete. The new Retained EU Law Bill could also see the end of basic protections, leading to the loss of designated wildlife sites and a relaxation on pollution laws, resulting in more sewage in our rivers and streams.
What’s more, the UK Government is also reviewing the new system that has been developed to reward farmers that help to restore the environment. Reports suggest that instead they might revert back to the old system of paying farmers depending on how much land they own (with larger landowners receiving more subsidy). This is a complete about turn on the farming reform the Conservative Party promised to deliver in their election manifesto in 2019.
You can read more about these issues in our blogs shared below.