Campaigns Update

After weeks of pressure, the Secretary of State Robert Jenrick has said he will ‘call in’ the decision to allow the construction of a new coal mine in Cumbria – the first of its kind in more than 30 years.

This means the decision will be examined in a public inquiry, and the project could be scrapped completely.

10,000 of you flooded Robert Jenrick’s inbox with emails asking him to intervene – proof that if we come together, we can achieve great things for the countryside and climate.

Opening this coal mine in the face of a climate emergency was never a good idea. This decision is a victory for common sense, and we have you to thank.

It’s not over yet, but we’re heading in the right direction, and victory isn’t far off.

It’s that time of year when all of nature is gearing up for breeding, when spring is tangible in increasingly warm days, longer evenings and emerging wildlife.

In the third of her exclusive monthly columns for CPRE, Susie White gives us her tips on what to look out for this month.

Discover how to tell toadspawn from frogspawn, exactly why hares ‘box’ at this time of year, and how to tell if a nuthatch is moving up or down the trunk of a tree just by using your ears!

Rishi Sunak could have used his spring budget to announce real green investment to help the economy recover from the pandemic.

But it turned out to be a disappointing budget for climate, communities and the countryside.

And although Robert Jenrick has since had a rethink, the Chancellor missed a chance to can plans for a new coal mine and prove that the government is a world leader in tackling climate change.

But the green leadership that the government’s rhetoric promises wasn’t borne out, as we see economic policies being pursued that could disadvantage the lives of people in rural communities and worsen the climate crisis.

'Outside the city – there one began to live. The escape into clean air, the gradual return to nature – with this came satisfaction, peace, freedom, solitude, excitement.' - Ethel Haythornthwaite, campaigner and founder of CPRE Peak District and South Yorkshire in 1924.

To mark International Women’s Day, we celebrate the achievements of the historic CPRE campaigners who shaped the way we think about the countryside and the wider environment.

From our co-founder Molly Trevelyan to our first anti-roads campaigner, Barbara Maude, discover the women that shaped the countryside.

The Prime Minister has called on world leaders to turn round nature’s decline by 2030. But there’s no commitment in law to do the same here at home. The Environment Bill is the last chance to set this right.

We’ve joined more than 50 nature conservation groups to call for a change to the Bill to require the UK Government to set a legally binding target to reverse the loss of nature in England by 2030.

Almost half of UK wildlife is in long term decline and 15% of species are at risk of extinction, so we must act now.

Will you sign the petition calling on the Prime Minister to write the recovery of nature into the Environment Bill?