Compiled by Danielle Shaw

Today, people from around the globe are coming together to celebrate International Women’s Day. It brings an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements and marks a call to action for accelerating gender equality. UK Youth for Nature would like to take this opportunity to amplify the voices of some of the conservationists and campaigners in our network, celebrate the people who inspire them, and share some tips for getting involved in the environmental sector.

Morgan Guthrie

Who inspires you?

Mya-Rose Craig inspires me because she set up her own organisation, Black2Nature, to increase engagement of VME communities in the UK with nature. She works incredibly hard to ensure her work is accessible through education and that it intersects with social justice and health and wellbeing. Also, Mikaela Loach and her work as a social justice and environmental activist is inspiring as she campaigns for intersectional action and justice in the climate sphere.

Do you have any advice for working in the environmental sector?

The environmental sector can seem extremely daunting at first, with so many different elements to the sector. A good way to enter the sector is to decide what you are most interested in and then research organisations and groups, local or national, that work in this area that you can join. Volunteering is a great way to start and can lead to lots of new opportunities, contacts, experiences and skills. If you don’t find the kind of organisation you want to join, then start it! You will find so many people who share your passion. Also following people on social media who work in these fields or are environmental activists is beneficial as they may share resources, opportunities and tips that could help you!

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Monica Kaur Bhatia

What motivated you to volunteer in conservation?

A lifelong admiration for the outdoors – as simple as it sounds, the beautiful colours paired with the feeling of fresh clean air was enough to convince me of how sacred nature was, and since then all I have wanted to do is protect it. My current environmental position includes blog/journal writing about nature on land and in the oceans, paired with some photography and social media advocacy – and also studying to hopefully take zoology at university!

Who inspires you?

Marine biologist Asha De Vos; her recent appearance as a key voice on David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet was my first time seeing a South Asian woman like myself on TV doing exactly what I aim to do in my future, and therefore made me believe that I could succeed in this field.

Do you have any advice for working in the environmental sector?

If I could give any advice to young women wanting to work with the environment, I’d have to say put yourself out there; email every youth group you can find, DM all of the conservationists you look up to and establish relationships with people who can support you, and see how many doors open up!

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Talia Goldman

Tell us about your current environmental position.

By day I’m the Sustainability Officer for a food packaging company, and by night (and most days) I’m the Co-Director for UK Youth for Nature. Joining UKY4N was my way of taking ownership of my deep, deep desire to move into the more wildlife-centred world of nature protection. Volunteering with UKY4N became a platform from which I could work out where my skills were best valued and an incredible moment to work with people who care just as much as I do, from a complete mix of academic and personal backgrounds. It has also shown me how far persistence can get you. After pouring my heart, soul, and rigorous Excel organisational skills into the movement, I became Co-Director after about 6 months. Taking the plunge into volunteering continues to motivate me in my professional career – it’s definitely not a question of one or the other.

Do you have any advice for working in the environmental sector?

You don’t have to be a scientist to pursue a career in nature protection and wildlife conservation. This is a myth that I long assumed to be true, as I tried to change field after graduating from my BA in French and Russian in 2017. It sometimes still feels a bit silly to write that down, or to say it out loud, but it’s a reminder that I still need. The environmental field is so huge and it’s one that needs a whole range of skills and expertise, if we’re going to have any long-term, positive impact on the planet and people’s attitudes towards nature. There is absolutely space for everyone, from any background and with any interest – it’s just about taking that first step, keeping your love of nature and desire to work in the field at the heart of everything you do, and slowly and surely finding out where you can best contribute.

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Danielle Shaw

Who inspires you?

Caroline Lucas. Having supportive and proactive politicians is so important if we are to make a difference for people and the planet. Caroline may be the only Green MP, but her voice on matters of the environment and social justice is strong and effective. She is an inspiration to me as she is a shining example of working hard and standing up for what you believe in.

Do you have any advice for working in the environmental sector?

In the past I was made to feel that to be considered a ‘conservationist’, I had to be working towards a PhD or be out in the field doing research. This is untrue, and I am much happier since pursuing a role in communications that I actually enjoy and am good at. Research is obviously a vital part of conservation and should be celebrated, but if we are to make a real difference, we need people in lots of other roles, such as photographers, lawyers, politicians, artists, campaigners, and journalists, just to name a few! So follow your passion and use your unique talent, not only will you enjoy it more but you’re more likely to work harder and make a difference too.

We know that there are a  number of areas where we know we can improve our performance, knowledge and outcomes. An Advisory Committee would help us to ensure that our actions as an organisation and a movement are as impactful as they can be and are embedded in evidence, accuracy, and expertise. 

We are currently seeking advisors with the following expertise:

List of positions:

1. Diversity & inclusion 
2. Social media 
3. Campaign strategy  
4. Political strategy  
5. Mental health & education 

Our initial proposal would be for an average of 1 day/month. However, the structure of the advisor’s position would be tailored according to their skills, expertise, availability, and own ideas, investment, and requirements. This time would be used mainly by the core Organising Team and would perhaps include: 

• Review of strategy documents, according to area of expertise, and suggestions for improvement 
• Review of campaign materials, according to area of expertise, and suggestions for improvement 
• Open discussions and general training and advice 
• Targeted sessions for wider members of the team 
• Specific questions that would be addressed to advisors only once we had undertaken research and attempted to come up with solutions ourselves.

If you’re interested or want to find out more, please email: ukyouthfornature@gmail.com 

Thank you! 

Peatlands remember. They remember the way the climate has changed over thousands of years by the shifting pollen grains they hold. They remember brutal sacrifices from the Iron Age by their careful swaddling of perfect human corpses. They remember pollution 800 years ago with increased lead deposits. They remember us testing nuclear weapons by the radioactive isotopes that sprinkled down on them. They remember ancient fires with thin layers of buried ash. And they remember today’s fires too.

Upland moors in places like the Peak District are burned every year to remove the cover of heather. The heather, whose roots are still intact, will grow back over the next couple of years. Grouse, rusty brown birds with white feet and a red streak on their heads, eat these fresh shoots. This food, the protective shelter of older heather patches, and the reduced predation risk by birds of prey (because of their illegal destruction by gamekeepers) the grouse population grows. This thriving does not last, however. Instead of being hunted to feed hungry golden eagles and hen harriers, it is humans who pay around £7000 a day for the luxury of shooting them. Roughly 500’000 grouse are shot every year like this.

Peatlands remember. They are made of memory. 

Peat is layers of partially decomposed plant matter, accumulated over thousands and thousands of years. In the blanket bogs where grouse hunting happens, the plant community is dominated by Sphagnum moss. They begin their lives as an explosion of spores, which then germinate and extend their tendrilous branches across and under the surface of the peatland. Deeper than a centimetre or two, light cannot penetrate. Sphagnum beneath this point, buried by its cousins above, dies. But it is not forgotten. The watery grave protects it. Whereas in other ecosystems microorganisms and fungi break down dead bodies, in peatlands they are much less able to do so.  This is because the oxygen decomposers require to stay alive cannot penetrate through the water. As well as this, Sphagnum is made out of cells that are inherently resistant to decomposition and it produces chemicals which acidify the water, effectively pickling itself. 

The peatland remembers everyone who ever lived there, building itself from them and in doing so becoming the largest terrestrial carbon store. New plants germinate and grow on top of their ancestors and the bog climbs upwards, growing around a centimetre each year, and each year sequestering around 0.37 gigatons globally of CO₂.0.37 Gt, one centimetre ago, Zac Goldsmith pledged to ban the burning of peatlands for grouse shooting. Yet today still the practice continues, with the environment minister George Eustice accused of blocking efforts at legislation. When these areas are burned, the top layer of Sphagnum is destroyed and the level of organic matter in the upper layers of peat is diluted by the incoming ash from the burning. It is this upper layer of organic matter which holds on to

the scarce nutrients which come to the bog through the rain, so without it Sphagnum cannot get the fuel it needs to grow. As the researchers from Leeds University put it: “In this sense, the peat retains a ‘memory’ of past burning”.

Even worse than this, burning lowers the water table, exposing peat to the air and allowing it to decompose and release its carbon. Burning peatlands for grouse shooting releases 260’000 tonnes of CO­₂ every year in England. 

Looking globally, as well as burning, extracted peat is imported for use in compost and peatlands are drained so the land can be used for agriculture. The combined total of all of these is that degraded peatlands release 6% of annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The peatland’s memories are destroyed at our expense.

Contemplating peatlands gives a deep perspective on time and land. Many lament that we would lose an essential English tradition if we were to ban burning. The thousands-of-years-old peat mocks the idea of a 250-year-old ‘tradition’. Many cite the economic benefits that grouse-shooting brings, but these dwindle when they are put in proportion to the size of the land used. And they vanish when we look with the peatland’s eyes wider and deeper in time. The short-term benefits are outweighed by the costs of the climate and ecological crisis. Costs which are already hitting those worse off the hardest, and which my generation and my generation’s children will have to deal with. 

Having said this, policies for peatlands in England must not leave the communities who have benefitted from historic poor practices without alternative means of supporting themselves – for example through regenerative payments for peatland’s many ecosystem services. Effective engagement with these local stakeholders is required for a collective movement into the positive vision of a future where peatlands and humans can thrive.

Peatlands will remember the decisions this government makes long after its term has ended. Next year the assembled countries of the world will remember the decisions this government makes when they congregate here for COP26. Therefore let them be the right decisions. Ensuring a just transition for local communities, we must ban burning on peatlands; ban the import of extracted peat from other countries; and rewet, restore and protect our degraded peatlands. If we do not, the peatlands will remember. 

By Jamie Walker, with Bethany Copsey and Frankie Turk, members of Re-Peat. If you run into any problems accessing the cited resources, contact Jamie Walker for more information.

We have today (15th October 2020), along with A Focus on Nature and Re-Peat, written to the Government calling on them to ban peat burning. Here’s the full text of our letter.

To: Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Rt Hon George Eustice MP, Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

15th October 2020

Re: Young nature conservationists urge the government to ban the burning of peatlands

Dear Secretaries of State

We are writing to you as a network of young people passionate and alarmed about the decline of our natural world. We urge you to take the necessary steps to bring an end to the burning of peatlands in England.

Peatlands are one of the most precious habitats in our country, and we are home to an important proportion of Europe’s peatland habitat, and of the world’s blanket bog. Peatlands have formed over thousands of years and hold 20 years’ worth of the UK’s annual emissions. But, at present these greenhouse gas storage machines have been put into reverse gear and are pumping out carbon into the atmosphere. The UK’s peatlands currently release the equivalent of 6% of our annual emissions.

One of the main causes of this, releasing 260,000 tonnes of CO2 per year in England, is the practice of burning peatlands, which also destroys their ability to store water and their status as a home to rare biodiversity too.

As the UK prepares to host the world’s climate conference in 2021, banning this practice is one of the most basic steps that could be taken to bolster our reputation on climate change. We cannot lecture other countries on their practices (such as Brazil’s burning of the Amazon – in 2019 the Prime Minister said he was “deeply concerned” by the fires) while we continue to intentionally set fire to our own vast carbon stores. 

Our international diplomatic leverage and credibility will be undermined if we do not tackle this issue.

Your Government must do three things:

• Ban the burning of peatlands. This practice is unnecessary and environmentally destructive. Your Government wants to be the first to hand on the environment in a better state – if you do not ban peat burning then this alone will mean you have failed your own test.
• Include peat emissions in the UK’s greenhouse gas inventory (at present they account for 6% of annual UK emissions but are not included in our accounts, removing any real incentive to get to grips with them).
• Ban the use of peat compost, so as we stop using peat dug up from the rare peatlands of other countries.

On behalf of young people across the UK passionate about nature and wildlife, we urge you to take these steps. If these measures can be put in place, they will be the cornerstone of a flourishing, healthy future for our peatlands. We dream of that future and hope to be the generation that ushers it into existence.

We would be grateful for the opportunity to discuss this issue with you or your departments.

Matt Williams, Director, UK Youth for Nature (www.youthfornature.uk)

Lauren Cox, Policy and Campaigns Officer, A Focus on Nature (www.afocusonnature.org)

Jamie Walker, Re-Peat (www.re-peat.earth)