Most UK adults think nature is in urgent need of protection

A majority of the public believe nature is under threat and needs urgent action to protect and restore it according to a YouGov poll.

The poll commissioned for the National Trust, RSPB and WWF comes as they and other mainstream groups are mobilising their millions of members to counter the Government’s clear attack on nature.

More than 8000 adults were surveyed before the Government announced the creation of low-tax investment zones, where “burdensome” environmental and planning rules will be lifted, and details emerged of the scale of environmental laws derived from the EU that are to be scrapped or rewritten in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022.

81% of the respondents said they believed nature was under threat and that more needed to be done urgently to protect and restore it.

48% of the respondents said they were willing to take action themselves to reverse the damage.

The majority of respondents said they had witnessed a decline in nature and wildlife in their local area, 65% in the number and variety of insects they see, 58% in birds, 60% in mammals and 59% in green spaces such as parks and woodlands.

The charities are inviting people to develop a set of public demands to protect nature’s future by visiting People's Plan For Nature before 30th October 2022. They are also calling on the Prime Minister, Liz Truss, and the Environment Secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, to take rapid action.

The YouGov poll suggests that the public want action to clean up rivers, greater consideration of nature in the planning and house-building system and strengthened legal protections.

Most of these protections stem from EU laws that were rolled over into UK law after Brexit. They are now under threat from the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022 that has listed 570 environmental laws to be taken off the statute books by December 2023.

The Director General of the National Trust, Hilary McGrady, the CEO of the RSPB, Beccy Speight and the Chief Executive of WWF-UK, Tanya Steele, said in a joint statement: “This Government, elected on their greenest ever manifesto, is now contemplating breaking its promises on vital protections for the UK’s nature, risking catastrophic consequences.

“From abandoning fundamental legal protections for wildlife to failing farmers committed to sustainable agriculture, this would be an attack on nature at the worst possible time.

“The desire to defend nature unites people in every community from Caerphilly to Cumbria, Antrim to Aberdeen, and we must all be part of the conversation about how we protect and restore it.”

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