In the world of environmental campaigning there has been a bit of discussion recently about how to get noticed. This has been sparked by the reaction in the media to the recent environmental protests that took place in London at the end of April 2023. Thousands of people protested peacefully in the city, but the majority of media outlets ignored them, with coverage being very limited.
This is a common occurrence in world of conservation, and at the same time as the protests were taking place I noticed it happening to another piece of environmental campaigning. In early 2023 the People's Plan for Nature was published, having been coordinated by the National Trust, WWF and the RSPB. It was launched with great fanfare, with Beccy Speight (CEO of the RSPB) stating that they "want this to be the biggest ever conversation on the future of nature." The website states that "it will be too big for anyone to ignore."
However I would contend that perhaps it has been ignored. It got a small amount of coverage on Twitter and featured in my RSPB and National Trust members magazines. However I have not come across anyone in the sector who is talking about it. We can therefore safely assume that if it hasn't spread strongly within my own conservation focused echo chamber, it will not have broken through that bubble into the wider world.
We have been here before. In 2018 the People's Manifesto for Wildlife was published as an accompaniment to a march in London. Whilst there are differences in their content and the way they were produced, there is an inherent similarity, that they are both claiming to be plans from the people, to be used as a campaigning tool to create change. Another similarity is that one could argue that they have both been ignored.
Since its publication in September 2018, 4 years ago, how many of the actions set out in the People's Manifesto for Wildlife have been achieved? Has any follow up campaigning been done using it? Has any monitoring of its impact been done by those who created it? Or was it (as I suspect it was) released to great glossy fanfare but then left, and not returned to? I have had a quick look through some of the early sections and from what I can see very few of the actions have been achieved.
I think the newer People's Plan for Nature could probably learn a lot from this example. Producing your campaign material is only part of the process, in order to effect change persistent lobbying, campaigning and messaging is needed. Without this one could argue that you are wasting your time and doing the material a disservice. I have not worked in environmental campaigning but I know people who have, and they say that it takes a lot of hard work over many years to win people over. Humans are not rational fact processing machines, they require convincing, it's not enough to produce a plan or a manifesto and expect everyone to automatically adopt it.
The world of conservation is littered with many plans and visions, some realised, some not. I wonder if we'll see another one come along in 4 years. I don't wish to be too critical but we don't have time to waste on more plans, we need action. We've known what we want and what we need for a long time now. We need to focus on doing it and influencing others to join and support us. Will we shift from planning to action? Or will we repeat ourselves and continue shouting into the void? Time will tell.
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