This afternoon, a group of The Wildlife Trusts’ youth ambassadors will hand in a 60,000-strong petition, and over 10,000 personal views shared by the public, all calling for more ambitious Government targets to halt and reverse nature’s decline.
The Government will soon set legally binding targets for nature’s recovery. This is urgently needed because the UK is one of the most wildlife-depleted countries in the world and habitat loss and degradation continue to blight people’s lives and affect nature’s ability to store carbon.
The long-term target currently being proposed for nature’s recovery aims to have just 10% more nature in 2042 than 2030 levels – by which time the state of our natural world is expected to have declined even further. The Wildlife Trusts have written a letter to the Prime Minister expressing serious concern and calling instead for a 20% increase on 2022 levels.