Brits back £1bn-a-year plan to give young and unemployed paid conservation work

22 August 2023 , 13:54

672     0

Activist group Green New Deal Rising has called for a new National Nature Service (Image: Shared Content Unit)

Nearly seven out of 10 voters support setting up a massive new 'National Nature Service' - getting young and unemployed people doing conservation work, a poll found.

Campaigners say the scheme would help tackle the UK's ecological "crisis", with just 15% of the public trusting the Tories to protect nature. Activists Green New Deal Rising urged the Government to draw inspiration from a huge project launched in the US nearly a century ago.

The group - which last month embarrassed Keir Starmer by interrupting a speech he was giving in Kent - has identified hundreds of conservation projects across the country. If brought in, Green New Deal Rising says, it will create thousands of jobs.

And polling conducted for the campaign group found 68% of the public would support such a move. The Institute for Public Policy Research has estimated a National Nature Service would cost around £1billion a year.

It would be modelled on the Citizen Conservation Corps, first introduced by Franklin D Roosevelt during the Great Depression. It was credited with putting a million people into work and planting three billion trees.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

Dr Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife & Countryside Link, said: “More people than ever want green jobs, but there’s a huge skills gap. A National Nature Service, with a funded programme of nature projects, would open up brilliant opportunities for environmental employment in every corner of the country, it would boost the green economy, and it would kick start the urgent action needed for nature”.

GNDR supporters have called on the Labour Party to meet with them to discuss their plans, and have held "sit outs" at the offices of high-profile party figures. Co-director Hannah Martin said: "The National Nature Service is a way to make meaningful improvements to our environment and deliver multiple employment and health benefits at the same time.”

She added: "This scheme would ensure they had access to fulfilling work protecting families from sea level rise, restoring peatlands or rewilding areas of their cities. That’s why we are calling on the Labour party to invest in a National Nature Service and a Green Jobs Guarantee which together can provide our country with the good green jobs we desperately need in the new economy.”

Polling of over 2,000 adults, carried out by Opinium, found 67% would be in favour of a National Nature Service. GNDR has called for Labour to bring in a permanent windfall tax for high polluters, bring in wealth taxes to raise £50billion and expand public ownership of energy and water firms.

* Follow Mirror Politics on Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter and Facebook.

Dave Burke