The next generation of activists
Not a nervous foot in sight, no sucked sleeves or sombre faces peeking out to catch a glimpse of the world going by from behind the safety of their teachers. The kids we’d come to join that morning were strong and confident, they had a part to play and didn’t they know it. Having amassed on the morning of what seemed like any other Tuesday to the hordes of rushed commuters bustling past Westminster tube station, this band of school children were taking the first steps on a journey that would see them later that day, outside the prime minister’s door, bringing real, positive environmental change to the UK.
Having just seen through the G7 summit, the UK is once more playing host to the play date of international policy makers, with the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known to its friends as COP26, set to take place in Glasgow later this year. The goal of this big boys club is to ‘accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN framework convention on climate change’ - which when we translate diplomat to plain English means figure out how we can stop irreparably destroying the environment and move forward as climate conscious as possible.
Ask any of the primary school children on the day though and they’d tell you sure enough that the government simply wasn’t doing enough, and the likelihood was that we couldn’t rely on it to do better. And so, rife with stories of letter writing campaigns to BA regarding their plastic consumption, litter picks around their communities, and swaps they’d made to reduce single use plastic, these kids from SAS plastic free schools had come to knock on Boris’ door, declare an #OceanEmergency and hand over a list of demands.
Specifically, they were handing in a petition, signed by almost 70’000 individuals and schools across the country, calling for the UK to put the ocean at the forefront of climate negotiations. The people have spoken, and they want to see ocean rewilding and blue carbon habitat restoration, the implementation of High Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs), and recognition of the importance of marine ecosystems for human well-being by governments world-wide. (More on that here)
Lending her support on the day, speaker and environmental activist Hannah Mills dropped by, oh and let’s not forget she’s also an Olympic champion sailor so yeah, she knows a thing a two about the health and well-being benefits a thriving ocean has to offer.
With Hannah, the Surfers Against Sewage team, and their teachers by their side, these kids marched dauntlessly past the towering gates of Downing Street, right up to the door of No.10. Along the way we got a taste of what it meant for them to be there, their inspirations for fighting for a cleaner, more environmentally conscious world, and how they thought they could make a difference. Covering everything from melting ice caps interfering with the hunting strategies of polar bears to contacting your local MP; it quickly became apparent that these weren’t just a bunch of primary school children out on a class trip for the day, but committed, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic activists ready to create the changes they wanted to see (even if a few of those ideas did involve polar bears and saving their cute babies)
At the days close the whole team had shoved just a list of the biggest threats (and accompanying solutions) to the ocean right under the governments nose. Whether they choose to take it on board during COP26 negotiations remains to be seen but what we saw on the day not only goes to show the growing discontent with environmental policies but stands as a testament to the incredible impacts that SAS’ plastic free schools programme can have.
We’ve got a long way to go in the fight for a healthy, protected ocean, but we can rest a little easier knowing the fight wont end with us. There’s a new generation of activists on their way who are informed, inspired, and ready to finish what we’ve started – right after their breaktime ends...