Nature Needs You
The fight to save our Swifts by Hannah Bourne-Taylor
We’d love you to join us in campaigning for nature. Find out how you can get involved and what actions you can take today.
Why nature needs you
Swift campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor describes her fight to save Swifts and how you could get involved.
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Hannah Bourne-Taylor is campaigning for Swift bricks to be installed in new buildings. Here she explains the urgency of her campaign and why we all need to take action to help struggling species.
My fight to save Swifts
Short messaging is key, and so the name of my new book is Nature Needs You because that way, even the title conveys the underlining message – a message that is broad, urgent and will hopefully empower readers to act on behalf of nature in some way. The subtitle – The Fight to Save our Swifts – gives a bigger clue as to what the story is mainly about: how I became a solo, unfunded, bird campaigner in a bid to save Swifts (and other birds reliant on our buildings to nest) from national extinction.
The campaign on which this book is based sounds so simple: secure cavity nesting habitat in buildings, since birds are losing their natural nesting sites without any mitigation, by asking the government to mandate a simple nesting brick.
The book begins in 2022, when I launched my campaign, and runs to the present, since I am still campaigning. That timescale demonstrates that even a simple biodiversity campaign isn’t straightforward. Through the story, I unravel broader nature restoration needs, the context of loss and recovery, and the champions who do so much for a variety of habitats and species across the UK.
Why nature needs you
On paper, I’m sure I wasn’t the obvious campaigning ambassador for the birds. I’m not famous nor did I have any connections in the world of conservation or politics when I started. I have spent most of the last decade living in rural West Africa rescuing, raising and releasing wild birds, with one finch nesting in my hair for eighty-four days before he returned to his family flock.
When I moved back to England in 2021, I didn’t even know who my MP was. It had never occurred to me to link nature to politics, or my love for the wild to government. Then everything changed. I tuned into the news and realised that British wildlife is in crisis.
When I heard Swifts had been added to the Red List and their population in the UK was plummeting, I had a visceral reaction. The first bird I ever rescued was a Swift. I imagined the very last Swift of Britain turning to me and saying, ‘But I thought you loved us,’ and me replying, ‘I do,’ and the Swift saying, ‘Then why didn’t you try to fight for us?’
Raising the alarm for Swifts
So I turned my worry into a fuel and finally, in my mid-thirties, I recognised my own agency. Sure, I had zero connections; sure, I didn’t have a big voice – but I had a voice. The birds don’t; nature doesn’t. So I acted. I ended up launching a petition unclothed, painted from neck to toe in inked feathers, finding myself walking through central London on a cold, wet November day. How else does a nobody gather 100,000 signatures in six months, which are the rules of engagement for government petitions?
A year later, I was walking to a government meeting at the Home Office, naked once more, with Swift shapes covering my dignity, while one of the most famous politicians in the UK, Lord Zac Goldsmith, walked next to me, holding a Swift brick.
I live a pretty surreal life these days. I’ve gone from knowing nothing about politics to regularly going to Parliament, with a Swift brick under my arm, meeting endless streams of MPs, securing debates, amendments, and meetings with Secretaries of State. The RSPB has been there every step of the way: for one of my first big political meetings, RSPB Chief Executive Beccy Speight came with me.
How to make an impact
We collaborated again recently, recording the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives in celebration of one of the co-founding women of the RSPB. Emily Williamson was a Victorian woman who took it upon herself to raise her voice for birds in a political campaign that took thirty years to win.
A century separates me and Emily but her legacy – the RSPB – is living proof that one person can make a huge impact. I hope that people reading my book or finding out about my campaign or indeed the history of the RSPB, will recognise their value too.
What I have learned is that it takes a certain character to be a solo campaigner: you have to have tenacity and resilience. For me, these traits came out of nowhere, blossoming from my deep connection with nature, so I reckon anyone who loves nature enough is the perfect campaigner. The biggest truths I’ve learned are:
1.
British wildlife needs our help, very badly: One in six species are threatened with national extinction, including 43% of British birds.
2.
We are a nation brimming with people who actively care about the nature on our doorsteps and beyond: there are so many nature lovers to learn from and join.
3.
No matter the political party, nature is very rarely on the political agenda.
4.
Many nature lovers haven’t yet recognised how powerful they can be.
5.
No action is too small. No voice is too small. No campaign is too small.
6.
We must realise how connected nature is to politics and recognise our voice.
To find out about how it feels to walk naked through central London, to be trolled online for years, to feel as if you have the very existence of an iconic species on your shoulders, to explore the Houses of Parliament, to confront government ministers, to find the very best of humanity, and some of the scariest truths about what nature really is up against, then sure, read my book – but if you don’t, just please, please read the title.
Because nature really does need you. If you don’t know where to start, join the fight to save our Swifts and, since these birds are posterchildren for biodiversity, they will likely take you to broader nature recovery needs all over the country.
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