Wild Card – The Green Tau

24th October 2025

Shaping a better world with Wild Card

This morning Wild Card handed both a petition with 122,000 signatures and an open letter signed by nearly 50 high profile individuals and organisations, including, Green Party leader Zack Polanski, former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, former chair of the IPBES and IPCC Sir Robert T Watson, Green Christian and Christian Climate Action, to Sarah Mullally the soon to be arch bishop of Canterbury . The petition took the form of a beautiful crafted paper model of the Ark, covered all the names, and which was carried aloft (by dignitaries that included Chris Packham and Helen Burnett who both made eloquent addresses) accompanied by an eagle, a beaver and a salmon, a whole host of flags and banners and well wishers wearing an assortment of decorative hats and tokens of the natural world.

The petition and the letter asked the Church Commissioners undertake to rewild 30% of the land that they currently steward on behalf of the Church corporate. (1) This land totals 108,000 acres of land (the equivalent of 60,000 football pitches) and that is separate from land owned by individual parishes and dioceses (which interestingly is an almost equivalent amount).

The United Kingdom is one of the most nature depleted nations in the world. Recognising the extent of this and its adverse impact on our wellbeing, the UK government has joined with others in 2022 in signing up to the international Global Biodiversity Framework (2), undertaking to restore and protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. Currently only 2.83% (3) of land in England meets the desired nature-rich standard so there is clearly a lot of ground yet to be covered in the next four years! The area of land under the control of the Church Commissioners makes the Church part of the 1% that owns 50% of the land in the UK.

Wild Card is raising awareness about the necessity of rewilding – the natural environment is our life-supply system providing us with fertile soils, pollinators, fresh air, clean water, carbon capture and flood protection, as well as enabling food production and medicines, mental wellbeing and recreation – and calling on major landowners to step up to the mark and and rewild – restore and protect for nature – 30% of their land.

Surely the Church as a Christian organisation, with the God-given commands to cherish and protect the Earth and to love our neighbours, should be at the forefront of this campaign and leading by example?

Sadly no one at St Paul’s Cathedral would receive the Ark nor allow its entry into that place of worship. Instead a phalanx of security personal ensured that no one trespassed onto the steps of that august building.

(1) https://wildcard.land/campaigns/rewild-the-church

(2) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criteria-for-30by30-on-land-in-england/30by30-on-land-in-england-confirmed-criteria-and-next-steps

(3) https://www.wcl.org.uk/30by30-press-release-2025.asp

PS You can still add your name to the petition – https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/help-save-nature-by-rewilding-the-church-s-massive-landholdings

PPS you can read Helen’s beautiful address here –

In the story of Noah and his Ark you may notice all sorts of things but the bit that always bugs me is that Noah’s wife doesn’t get a name……………

So, let’s start this morning by celebrating loud and clear what a delight it is to be addressing Sarah Mullaly first ever woman to hold the post of the Archbishop of Canterbury

At the helm as the Archbishop of Canterbury , she will become our very own 21^st century Noah and inherits a precious ship that must not sink.

We pray that she will not be overwhelmed by the floods that threaten us, but that instead, she will read the signs of the times and have the courage to save the biodiversity of this land – that she will do all she can to advocate for wilding church land and to act as a bulwark against the biodiversity and nature crisis of our times

Bishop Sarah’s first words to a waiting world were so encouraging –

‘ In the apparent chaos which surrounds us, in the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.’

Our hope this morning is that it will be kindness and love for our ‘other than human’ kin that will move Bishop Sarah to do all that she can to steer and shepherd us through these times,

to lead the church with the urgency of Noah building the ark,

and to act now to use church land for healing, regeneration and restoration.

How amazing would it be if the Church of England, through pressure on the Church Commissioners, could be the dove that bears the olive branch of hope, setting a tide change for other major land holders to wild their land.

Bishop Sarah also said ……..

‘In parishes across this nation, I see faithful clergy and congregations worshipping God and loving their neighbours.’

In my tiny little parish, we have a church yard where we are trying, through careful land management to bring back species of flora and fauna lost to the Surrey Hills.

We have created a wildlife corridor the length of the boundary wall between us and the neighbouring agricultural land.

In our small way we are seeking to restore, and so, I call upon on our new Archbishop to join us on our journey of messy churchyards and No Mow Mays to let nature do it’s healing even when it doesn’t look tidy??? Even when it doesn’t fit the financial portfolio to do so.

Imagine 200/108,000 acres of wonderful untidiness and what that could do – could church, like the ark be a beacon of hope to a world in crisis ?

Today we implore Bishop Sarah to include in her new vocation, the vanishing wildlife of our precious land,

And I say this directly to her, “as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury unlike Noah’s wife you will have a powerful voice with which to advocate for all species and you do not even need to build an Ark !”

In this role you have the power to guide and shepherd the Church Commissioners and the broader Church to recognise that ecological collapse and climate crisis are intertwined issues that need to be addressed with the urgency of Noah.

In the words of the recent vision statement from Christian Climate Action we appeal for the Church of England, to find its courage, cease doing harm and return to its roots, to Stop Crucifying Creation and to be a place of resurrection.

The church commissioners could cease doing harm by simply dedicating one third of their land to biodiversity restoration , yes, this would take courage but it would represent a return to the roots of a radical living out of the faith that honours all things and sees all creation as sacred. Today, as a lover of God’s creation and member of her clergy I want to thank Bishop Sarah for her words in Canterbury cathedral:

‘Hope’, she said, ‘is made of the infinite love of God, who breathed life into creation and said it was good’

That goodness now lies precariously close to collapse , can she give us back that hope and be the Noah we need to steer our ark through the biodiversity crisis towards that moment when we can, once again, see in the distance the dove bearing an olive branch?

Helen Burnett

13th October 2024

The biodiversity crisis and the Church

Globally we have been loosing vast amounts of the rich biodiversity which God gave us – both with the extinction of individual species and with the loss of numbers within species. The Natural History Museum has produced the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) which “measures biodiversity change using abundance data on plants, fungi and animals worldwide. The Index shows how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human pressures such as land use change and intensification.” A BII of less than 90% is considered to be detrimental to planetary wellbeing. Sadly large amounts of the globe, including Europe, fall below this level. (1) For the UK the BIK is 53%.

The UK’s State of Nature Report 2023 noted that species studied had declined on average by 19% since 1970; that 16% of species were threatened with extinction – including 43% of birds, 31% of amphibians and reptiles, and 28% of fungi and lichen – and that 151 of the 10,008 species assessed had already become extinct since 1500.(2)

This year’s Big Butterfly Count Big Butterfly Count revealed the lowest numbers on record. (3)

Biodiversity loss in the UK – as well as globally – is real and alarming.

Why is the of concern?

Agricultural production is dependent on healthy soils but this relies on a multitude of organisms that live in the soil. If these become depleted in both number and diversity, the health of the soil suffers – and this is not something that can be repaired by the addition of artificial fertilisers.

Many crops are dependent on pollinators, typically insects. If these decline in number and diversity, yields decline.

Agricultural yields can be adversely affected by flooding. Declining areas of wetlands, of peat moors, of woodlands, and of natural river courses and floodplains, increased the risk and extent of flooding.

Food security is also threatened if we become reliant on only a few commercial species. A virus or a change in climate can wipe out crops. Future losses can be avoided if scientists can access wild plants that have more resilient characteristics. But what if those wild alternatives are no longer there?

Air quality too is affected by the decline in biodiversity. Trees in particular, but other plants too, are important natural absorbers of pollutants both in the air and in the water.

The lack of anyone species can cause a cascading affect where other dependent species also decline. Declining numbers of insects lead to declining numbers of species of birds and bats. Biodiversity decline can accelerate at speed.

Biodiversity loss affects us as spiritual beings. Our lives are diminished as biodiversity is diminished. I have never heard a nightingale sing – that is a loss. I am lucky that as a child I did hear cuckoos, and even now as an adult, I do hear sky larks because they are still resident in Richmond Park. If I did not have green spaces to walk in, my mental health would suffer.

God too suffers from the loss of biodiversity. By their very nature, the flora and fauna of this world praises God in an endless wordless song. As they decline, so does this profound worship.

The nations of the world have been rightly concerned at the rapid loss of biodiversity globally and the impact that was – and increasingly would have – on human life and wellbeing. In 2022 the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) agreed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This set out to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 per cent of the planet and 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. This is often summarised as the 30:30 target. (4)

The UK government was party to this UN Conference and undertook the commitment to achieving this 30:30 target. However it is a tough target and progress to date has been slow and patchy.

Earlier this year Restore Nature Now organised a march in London in which between 60,000 and 100,000 people took part, representing a wide range for groups including the RSPB, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts, the Climate Coalition, WWF-UK, the WWT, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife and Countryside Link, Rewilding Britain, Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action.

Their demand was for more and greater action by the government. (5)

Last weekend another march took place organised by the group, Wild Card. A scroll was unrolled before the vast edifice of St Paul’s Cathedral, revealing 95 theses as to why as Christians and therefore as a Church, we should care about biodiversity and the well-being of the natural world. Just as Martin Luther’s 95 theses were put forward to stimulate theological debate, so too are these theses. (6)

Hymns were sung and speeches given, highlighting the plight of biodiversity and calling on the Church to show leadership in addressing the crisis. In particular the call was made that the Church Commissioners, as stewards of extensive land holdings (105,000 hectares) , should undertake to rewild 30% by 2030. (7)

Wild Card defines rewilding thus: “To rewild the land and water is to allow untamed life to return to ecosystems and landscapes, such that they are once again sustained by the natural processes that created them in the first place. In restoring these processes, humans are often intimately involved. Be it from rewetting bogs to reintroducing missing species, humans are very much invited to the rewilding party.” (8) Rewilding goes beyond goes simply protecting the biodiversity we still have and seeks to restore the biodiversity of our environment back towards 90% BII needed for a sustainable future.

Of course rewilding church land will have a profound effect on what we harvest – less meat and milk, more diverse horticultural and sylvocultural products; less cereal crops for animal feed, more meadows, fenlands and heaths; less livestock, more wild birds and animals; less mono-species plantations, more mixed broadleaf woodlands; less factory farming, more blue and green spaces for spiritual and mental re-creation, and more green jobs. There will be tough decisions to make and we all need to be part of the discussion: what changes in the lifestyles we live are we prepared to make. As Christians we are called throughout our life time to repent and believe, we are called embrace ‘metanoia’ – to see things differently, to change direction, to transform our relationships.

(1) https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/services/data/biodiversity-intactness-index.html

(2) https://stateofnature.org.uk/

(3) https://butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blog/uk-butterfly-emergency-declared

(4) https://www.cbd.int/gbf

(5) https://www.restorenaturenow.com/aims

(6) https://wildcard.land/campaigns/rewild-the-church/95-wild-theses

(7) https://wildcard.land/campaigns/rewild-the-church

(8) https://wildcard.land/about/about-wildcard