14th February..... Wild Justice.

Wild Justice is a new organisation which launches today. Its founders are Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery.

 

Wild Justice has been set up to fight for wildlife.  Threatened species can’t take legal cases in their own names but, with your help, we will stand up for wildlife using the legal system and seek changes to existing laws.

We will be taking court cases to benefit threatened wildlife.  Our first legal challenge is already in progress - our solicitors have sent, today, a letter to a public body - and we’ll soon be able to tell you all about it.

Visit our website (www.wildjustice.org.uk) and find out more about us, and sign up there for our newsletter so that you can keep in touch. [Note: it works in the usual way; 1. You subscribe, 2. you get an email asking you to confirm your subscription (please check spam box) and 3. after confirming you get another message or are sent back to the website.  Wild Justice already has over 1000 subscribers to its newsletter and we'd like you to join too.  If you do, you may see a strange error message after you click 'confirm'.  We know about this and are trying to fix it but if you get the error message you are definitely subscribed. Sorry about that - technology eh?].

Chris Packham said ‘Wild. Justice.  Because the wild needs justice more than ever before. The pressures wrought upon our wildlife have reached a crisis point and this is an essential response. The message is clear . . . if you are breaking the law, if the law is weak, if the law is flawed - we are coming for you. Peacefully, democratically and legally. Our simple premise is to work with the laws we’ve got to seek real justice for our wildlife, to reform, refine or renew those laws we have to ensure that justice can be properly realised. Our wildlife has been abused, has been suffering, exploited or destroyed by criminals for too long. Well, no longer. Wild Justice will at last be the voice of those victims and it will be heard . . . and justice will be served. ‘.

Mark Avery said ‘Wild Justice will take on public bodies to get a better deal for wildlife.  It’s a shame that we have to do this but we have little confidence that statutory bodies are fulfilling their functions properly. We aim to hold their feet to the fire in court. I’m reminded of what the great American environmental campaigner, Ansel Adams said ‘It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment’.’.

Ruth Tingay said ‘I know many people who despair about what’s happening to our wildlife but who also feel powerless to help, typically because access to justice can be prohibitively expensive and a daunting arena. Wild Justice provides an opportunity for ordinary citizens to fight back on behalf of wildlife, collectively helping us to challenge poor decisions or flawed policies that threaten to harm our wildlife. With so many potential cases, the difficulty for us will be to decide which ones to take on first’.

Here's the link to our website again  www.wildjustice.org.uk. 

I can also tell you that we are receiving lots of donations - that's very kind and very important.  We will crowd-fund for particular projects but we also have running costs (web design and building, setting up the organisation, some travel, our accountants etc) so donations that aren't specifically targetted at projects are very helpful. Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company - none of us will be earning anything from it.

This is Mark Avery's newsletter so I am not going to keep telling you about Wild Justice here even though it is, even now, very important to me.  Subscribe to the Wild Justice newsletter, through the Wild Justice website so Wild justice can keep you informed.