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Help keep our countryside alive
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Cirl buntings, like many farmland birds, rely on a healthy countryside
Image: RSPB - Nick Tomalin
For over 120 years, we have been at the forefront of campaigning for better laws to protect wildlife and special places. Now the Government is threatening to scrap those hard-won laws. Our landscapes and our wildlife are at risk.
The Government has put included all 278 pieces of environmental legislation and regulations in its 'Red Tape Challenge'. This exercise labels vital environmental protections and safeguards as mere bureaucracy and asks whether they should be scrapped altogether.
We have spent the last thirty years working to build up this environmental protection. Thanks to the support of people like you, we have had some major successes.
These include the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which protects wild birds and their nests, as well as the Climate Change Act - vital if we want to prevent mass extinctions. Recently, our supporters successfully lobbied for the Marine Act, which will afford some of our most precious marine habitats legal protection for the first time.
We have all seen the positive impact of these laws. They are not luxuries, nor are they simply 'red tape'. They are vital protection for the natural environment that we, and future generations, depend upon. Any weakening of them would seriously undermine this Government's stated ambition to be the 'greenest government ever'.
Now's your chance to step up and support our campaign to keep our countryside alive.
Please join the debate by visiting the official Red Tape Challenge website. Urge the UK Government to remove the option of scrapping these vital measures from the challenge. It needs to confirm its support for measures that protect our natural environment. You could also say why nature is important to you and why you believe it deserves protecting.