Update: 18/01/22:
The petition is going pretty well, considering I haven’t pushed it so much yet. I am starting to use it when emailing people about the project (so other organisations, etc., and I will return to pushing it shortly, once I have git a bit further with my project.) However, I am already on 192 signatures, which I am happy with!
After talking to Amy, I decided that one of the most key things for me to do, would be to create and launch a petition about rewilding in order to build my campaign around that. Having a petition will give me an extra something to show to organisations and people that I want to work with, and is something that I can take around and campaign in person with as well.
The demand of my petition is: “Rewild All Brownfield and Common Land in England” – I chose this for a variety of reasons:
- England is a narrowed and more achievable goal than the whole of the UK – and I can act on rewilding England locally, myself as well.
- Using brownfield sites seems to be the best use of the land – as often brownfield sites are left empty for nature to reclaim anyway. Rewilding them means giving nature a helping hand.
- Common land is land not owned by anyone – so it is land that can be rewilded easily and without having to contact land owners.
So far, I have shared the petition on a few platforms – including my activism instagram @emilykatherineknock and the project instagram @endangeredplantindex, and have collected 60 signatures. My goal is reach 100 signatures before I start reaching out to other organisations about my project, as it is a good number to be able to work from and it shows that I am serious and dedicated to the project, which will make them more likely to work with me. Below is a screenshot of my petition on Change.org, the link to which is here
In order to promote it, I created a short, one minute video explaining why I have made the petition and asking people to sign it. This was fun to do, as I hadn’t made this type of reel for quite a while, and it felt good to be creating something which is based on a direct action again, as I have taken a bit of a step back from FFF England for the moment to focus on my degree. I did find it challenging to learn the whole script however, and to be able to deliver it with strength and clarity – especially as my voice was still suffering from having a cold. However, I am very pleased with the final effect, as it is powerful, and has had quite a bit of interaction with online, which is positive. The video can be found here.
