A Royal Flush

'WILD CARD' CAMPAIGN CALLS ON ROYALTY, OXBRIDGE AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND TO REWILD THEIR LANDS

A new rewilding campaign group, 'Wild Card' is on a mission to rewild half of the UK to help tackle our biodiversity crisis. It's calling on their largest landowners to re-wild their lands, starting with the Royal Estates, the Church of England and the colleges of Oxbridge and Cambridge who together have control of hundreds of thousands of acres of land.

Since 1970, populations of the UK's most important wildlife have declined by an average of 60% and around one quarter of native mammals are at risk of extinction. And according to a UN report published in June, the world needs to rewild at least 1bn hectares (2.47bn acres), an area the size of China, by 2030 to meet its climate and nature commitments. Wildcard's initial focus is on the afore-mentioned institutions as they believe that their influential role in society means they have extra obligations to combat the degradation of nature.

"The Royals have stewardship over land and people. The Church provides moral, religious and spiritual guidance. Oxbridge is bringing up the next group of people who are probably going to rule the country and are supposed to shape young people's ideas of how things are supposed to work," said Clarice Holt, a co-founder of Wildcard."If those household names were to shift their perspectives on rewilding, they would bring a lot of people with them and would set the gold standard for rewilding as a general concept."

Launching with an open letter to the Royal Estates, addressed to the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge and signed by over a 100 of the UK's well known nature experts, influential ecologists, climatologist, professionals, authors etc, Wildcard's hope is that the Royals initial commitment will encourage other landowners to follow suit and prioritise nature. Taken together, the Royal estates and lands owned privately by the Sovereign are larger than those of any other single landowner in the UK. (You can read the letter Here).

The Oxbridge campaign will focus on the land owned by almost seventy colleges that comprise the two universities and the Church campaign will target land held by the Church Commissioners who own more than 105,000 acres worth almost £2 billion. Wildcard say that most of this land is in a dire ecological state stating "Of the land controlled by the Church Commissioners in England, only 3% of it is wooded compared with the UK average of 13%! This gives it the lowest tree coverage of the UK's top ten institutional landowners. The poor state of the Church's landholdings flies in the face of the wishes of the wider Church congregation who have consistently backed radical action on the climate and ecological emergency. Church leaders are also outspoken on the need to urgently restore nature. It's now time for the Church Commissioners to fulfil their duty and set large-scale rewilding targets that match the spiritual purpose and ambition of the Church itself."

For more information or to join their campaign visit their website Here.