Rewild The Royals.
The British Royal Family are the biggest landowning family in the country.
Spread across a vast network of ancient estates, the Royals own an area of land and foreshore twice the size of Greater London. This huge area of land features some of Britain’s most important sites for wildlife but sadly most of it is in a dismal state for nature.
Frequently overgrazed or dominated by hunting and shooting estates, the Royal landholdings also feature some of the lowest tree coverage in the country. The Duchy of Cornwall estate for example, owned by Prince William, has an average tree coverage of just 6%, less than half the national average of 13%.
Starting in 2021 we built a nationwide grassroots movement challenging the Royals to rewild.
We launched a headline grabbing campaign to persuade the Royal Estates to rewild - and won!
Our movement had little money and no legal mechanism to hold the royal estates to account, so we tried to embody the voice of the jester – the only courtier who could speak the truth without losing their head for it. With colour, humour and an abundance of love for nature we marched to Buckingham Palace with Chris Packham and hundreds of schoolchildren, threw down a 5m sculpture of a medieval gauntlet to Prince William, led investigations into royal greenwashing, won the backing of more than 100 climate scientists and public figures and, in collaboration with 38 Degrees, gathered over 175,000 signatures on our petitions.
And, amazingly, we won!
Incredibly, our campaigning seems to be working: in 2023 the Duchy of Cornwall agreed to our petition to expand Dartmoor’s temperate rainforest. The Crown Estate (the biggest of the Royal Estates) announced its first ever beaver release. And now, the unthinkable: even the king’s beloved Balmoral, once a bastion of bloodsports, is set to get its first rewilding project.
Read our Guardian article celebrating our successes here.
We launched a headline grabbing campaign to persuade the Royal Estates to rewild - and won!
Our movement had little money and no legal mechanism to hold the royal estates to account, so we tried to embody the voice of the jester – the only courtier who could speak the truth without losing their head for it. With colour, humour and an abundance of love for nature we marched to Buckingham Palace with Chris Packham and hundreds of schoolchildren, threw down a 5m sculpture of a medieval gauntlet to Prince William, led investigations into royal greenwashing, won the backing of more than 100 climate scientists and public figures and, in collaboration with 38 Degrees, gathered over 175,000 signatures on our petitions.
And, amazingly, we won!
Incredibly, our campaigning seems to be working: in 2023 the Duchy of Cornwall agreed to our petition to expand Dartmoor’s temperate rainforest. The Crown Estate (the biggest of the Royal Estates) announced its first ever beaver release. And now, the unthinkable: even the king’s beloved Balmoral, once a bastion of bloodsports, is set to get its first rewilding project.
Read our Guardian article celebrating our successes here.
But there is so much more to do.
A few beavers here and there is a great start, but the scale of the recently announced rewilding projects from the Royal Estates in no way reflects the urgency of the situation we face. The Royal family are respected world leaders in the climate movement and their land is symbolic of our whole nation’s approach to the natural world. It’s time for the Royal Estates to commit to giving 50% of their land back to nature by 2050.
And how can they do this? By reinvesting the colossal profits they earn from their estates and paying the struggling tenant farmers who manage their land to lead the way in restoring nature.
A few beavers here and there is a great start, but the scale of the recently announced rewilding projects from the Royal Estates in no way reflects the urgency of the situation we face. The Royal family are respected world leaders in the climate movement and their land is symbolic of our whole nation’s approach to the natural world. It’s time for the Royal Estates to commit to giving 50% of their land back to nature by 2050.
And how can they do this? By reinvesting the colossal profits they earn from their estates and paying the struggling tenant farmers who manage their land to lead the way in restoring nature.
Find out more...
Write to the King.c/o
The Private Secretary to His Majesty The King Buckingham Palace London SW1A 1AA |
Write to Prince William.c/o
The Private Secretary to His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, KG, KT, PC, ADC Clarence House London SW1A 1BA |