Sign our open letter to the UK Government
If you stand with us, and want the UK government to prioritise nature recovery and wild animal welfare, please read our open letter and add your name below.
Open Letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer
cc Secretary of State for Environment Steve Reed
cc Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Mary Creagh
cc Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Baroness Hayman of Ullock
Dear Prime Minister,
The Nature Recovery and Wild Animal Welfare Imperative
As advocates of nature protection and wild animal welfare, we were encouraged to see the commitments in your party’s election manifesto to protect landscapes and wildlife, promote nature recovery, meet the targets in the Environment Act, improve access to nature, and improve animal welfare.
During the election campaign, your colleague, Steve Reed MP, now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was quoted as saying: “For too long, too many animals, including the world's most endangered species, have been left to suffer in silence. The Conservatives are on the side of animal cruelty. Labour will end it. The next Labour government will introduce the biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation to end animal cruelty…”
However, while recognising the many other priorities facing your government, there was little in the King’s Speech or your proposed Bills to indicate that these promises will be prioritised and fulfilled during the first parliamentary session.
The recently-departed Conservative administration introduced some important legislation, including the Environment Act in 2021, and the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act in 2022. It also published some ambitious legislative and policy plans in its 2021 Action Plan for Animal Welfare.
However, it failed to follow up with the bold action required to effectively implement the wildlife protection elements of the Environment Act, and many of its wider plans ended up being abandoned, watered down, or relegated to precarious Private Members Bills, most of which did not come to fruition. It also left some important unfinished business, including the promised extension of the Ivory Act to cover ivory-bearing hippos and whales, and the secondary legislation required to give effect to the Animals (Low Welfare Activities Abroad) Act.
This situation must be remedied.
Your government has the power and responsibility to bring about the reforms and improvements that are so urgently needed, including fulfilling your commitments to ban trail hunting, the use of snares and the import of hunting trophies, and to end the ineffective badger cull, without delay.
But you also need to go much further, by putting in place the legislation and policies needed to effectively protect and restore our precious wildlife, and to end animal suffering.
To give us confidence in your stated ambitions, we urge you to appoint dedicated Commissioners for Nature and Animal Welfare at Cabinet level, to coordinate work across all government departments – treasury, health, education, justice, defence, overseas development, energy, business, social care, agriculture, foreign affairs and more – to ensure that what we do as a nation embraces and prioritises our agenda for nature and animal welfare, to hold ministers to account, and to report to government and the wider public.
We also urge you to establish a Nature Security Council, bringing our country’s best minds, greatest experience, and most innovative thinking to the corridors of power to help address one of the greatest threats to our security and survival, namely the crisis threatening all life on earth, as a result of the collective human impact on our nature-based, life-support systems.
These issues are vitally important to the wider public. On 22nd June, an estimated 100,000 people marched through London in the largest ever show of solidarity by community and environmental organisations, charities and action groups, united by the need for urgent, radical action to restore and protect nature.
Many people will have voted for change on July 4th in the belief that a new government would do the right thing for nature and the welfare of wild animals. Your government was elected.
They still believe that to be the case.
Prime Minister, the natural world is in crisis across the globe. The UK is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. Wildlife has declined by 32% in England since 1970, and one in eight of our native species are at risk of extinction. We are known the world over as a nation of animal lovers, yet vast numbers of wild animals continue to suffer here in the UK through cruel and destructive management practices, persecution in the name of culture or tradition, and in poorly-regulated captive environments.
The need for reform, and for real, effective protection for both free-living and captive wild animals, has never been more urgent. You now have the power, the mandate, and the widespread public support necessary to deliver this reform and protection, to set a precedent for other countries to follow, and to create a lasting legacy of which you - and we - can be rightly proud.
Let’s put nature before politics. Work with us.
Sincerely,
Dame Virginia McKenna DBE, Born Free Co-Founder
Will Travers OBE, Born Free Co-Founder
Chris Packham CBE, Broadcaster and Environmental Campaigner
Charlotte Corney, Animal Charity Founder
Nicky Campbell OBE, Broadcaster
Peter Hambly, Badger Trust CEO
Chris Luffingham, League Against Cruel Sports Acting Chief Executive
Nida Al-Fulaji, People's Trust for Endangered Species CEO
Nick Jones, Humane Society International/UK Executive Director
Sue Sayer, Cornwall Seal Research Trust Founder, Director and Chair
