AFON
Welcome to the Future – by Matt Adam Williams
Welcome to our series of blog posts in the run up to the general election (7th May 2015). Over the next month AFON members will share their own Visions for Nature: what they want the natural world to look like by 2050 and how they want to get there. We have created a hashtag on Twitter so why not join the conversation? What’s your #VisionforNature?
If you thought politics and people power couldn’t change anything, think again. Even in recent months a referendum, which was lost by those trying to change the status quo, has nonetheless revolutionised Scottish politics.
A movement for fossil fuel divestment that started on university campuses has been taken up by one of the world’s largest media groups. Massive, international foundations are now removing their money from coal, gas and oil. The powerful and the mighty can listen. Campaigns for political change do work. They have brought landmark pieces of legislation like the Climate Change Act and gay marriage law.
A Focus on Nature is full of talented individuals who care about wildlife. Its members photograph wildlife in remote Scotland, trap moths in a suburban garden, and sketch and paint wildlife from their local woodland. But, being in our teens or twenties, much of this wildlife could be scarce or gone by the time we’re retired.
The very fact that we’re able to enjoy them right now is thanks to the selflessness and foresight of people who came before. Campaigners like Octavia Hill and naturalists like Gilbert White looked beyond their own needs, and their work provided the knowledge, understanding and protection that means we can enjoy wildlife today. All this green space and scientific knowledge didn’t just alight here from afar, it was carefully grown and grafted onto over generations by those looking ahead to the needs of the future.
If we want to ensure that the wildlife we love is still around for our old age and for future generations, then instead of just adding our voices to other people’s petitions, let’s stand together as a youth movement for nature.
Let’s say that wildlife should be protected and restored for its own sake, for young people’s sake and for future generations. We should do this both because it’s the right thing to do and because if we don’t, we really will have to live in that kind of future, where our subject matter, the creatures we love, are taken away from us.
Most of the big decisions that affect nature are made by people in their middle age or older. This is why nature is an ‘intergenerational’ issue – decisions made today will affect the lives (of wildlife and people) of those to come.Few arguments are as powerful as the ones coming from the mouths of young people saying that those in power are screwing up their future and need to do something different.
I’ve seen this argument work effectively. I’ve been part of the global youth climate movement. In the last ten years this movement has succeeded achieved things that were inconceivable a decade ago. The momentum behind fossil fuel divestment and leaving 80% of our fossil fuels in the ground is unstoppable. These young people are recognised, sometimes admired, by diplomats and politicians.
I know that the young people who are part of A Focus on Nature, Next Generation Birders, Bristol Nature Network and other groups, can play the same role for nature and wildlife. We can speak as a youth movement that wants a flourishing future for wildlife. And what better time to do that than during a general election and at the beginning of a new Parliament and Government?
That’s where Vision for Nature comes in. This is AFON’s project to set out what young people want the natural world to look like by 2050 and how we want to get there. We’ll be sharing this vision, and the changes we want to see, with other conservation organisations, businesses and politicians.
In the coming weeks, tell us your Vision for Nature – tweet @AFONature or email afonmembers@hotmail.com.Over the next month, write a blog here, and send the link to the candidates who are asking for your vote to be your next MP.Send us your Vision for Nature and we’ll make use of it, we’ll tweet it to politicians and we’ll use it to inform the Vision for Nature report that we’ll be giving to the new Government.
This is the most exciting moment in A Focus on Nature’s fresh history, and a moment for us all to put ourselves on the map and achieve something incredible to help to secure nature’s future.