Raising my voice for a Wilder Future

Here’s the first in our series of guest blogs about the Wilder Future campaign by Jessica McMaster.

Jessica is one of  Tomorrows Natural Leaders, a five-year project led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust which is training young leaders, upskilling and empowering them to inspire their peers and communities to take action on local environmental projects and campaigns across Yorkshire.

Jessica lives in Sheffield and supported on our Wilder Future campaign by writing to her MP, Jared O’Mara. Here’s Jessica’s story on why it’s important to her, how it all happened, plus some helpful advice on how you can take action too.

Nature needs protecting

[lead]As far back as I can remember, wildlife has always played a strong, positive role in my life, from watching puffins on boat trips off the coast of Britain, to sitting silently parked in our car right in the middle of a city at night as a badger trotted by outside.[/lead]

I grew up on our family walks in the countryside, and learnt so much about our precious natural world from exploring its wild places and creatures here in the UK.

Sadly, I can’t say that I’ve seen more than one wild hedgehog in my whole life, and I’ve never seen the once widespread golden eagle at all, and nor can many people in Britain anymore. British wildlife is in decline, and stronger environmental legislation is needed to restore and protect our beautiful green spaces and wildlife before they are gone forever.

This is why I decided to do my bit for the Wilder Future campaign. With Brexit drawing ever closer, Britain is facing its biggest shake-up of environmental laws ever. The Government was preparing to draw up a new Environment Bill for post-Brexit UK, and this was the perfect opportunity for me to share my concerns and demand a Wilder Future for Britain.

To make my voice heard, I knew I would have to write to my local MP and arrange a meeting if I could. I knew I would be nervous about s