Launch of our pesticide-free garden pledge

The day we have been planning for a while is here - we have launched our pledge for gardeners to go pesticide-free! Pledge to go pesticide-free

Pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides etc), are harmful to human health, wildlife and pets. If you've been reading our blog for a while, you'll know that we've been trying to persuade Leicester City Council to stop using glyphosate in our parks and green spaces for almost five years. They've made some progress in reducing their usage of this harmful chemical, but they are still spraying. We want to show them that Leicester's gardeners can manage without pesticides, so they should too! Can you help us by signing our pledge? It's not too late to make a new year's resolution for 2026. The thank you email has some advice on how to look after your garden without using chemicals. And please do sign even if you've been gardening organically for a long time. We are planning to use the postcodes (without linking them to people's names) to create a map of pesticide-free gardens across the city. If you're able to share with local friends and family after signing, that would help us to collect more pledges.

Nature Needs You written by Hannah Bourne-Taylor

This book is an amazing read about one woman’s (Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s) fight to get swift bricks put into all new build houses. It tells the story of how Hannah’s love for swifts makes her promise to help them, as they are now on the endangered list of birds in trouble in the UK. Hannah’s promise leads her on a journey to battle with building companies and the Government and makes her become a campaigner extraordinaire battling to fulfil her promise to this tiny bird. 

The book begins on May Day 2021, with Hannah Bourne-Taylor ‘lie(ing) on her back among the fast-growing blades, the May sun warm on her face for the first time this year’. She is waiting to see the swifts that she loves return; she ‘scans the sky, ears ready to hear their screams’. When she hears them, she cries out herself , ‘Welcome home!!!!’, rejoicing as this 45-gram bird makes its return flight from Africa to Britain to breed. 

Swifts are an amazing miracle of nature as once they hatch out and leave the nest they spend the rest of their time in flight – they eat, drink, bathe, breed and sleep all on the wing. They make the long journey every year to southern Africa, crossing the Sahara Desert twice every year, not landing like other birds. They only land to lay their eggs and feed their chicks when they get back to our shores. They build their nests in holes in walls, under the eaves of houses, churches or old buildings. In the past, they built nests in caves and cliff faces and high trees but now, due to those habitats being mainly lost, they look for old buildings. Once the nest has been built the swifts will return to the same site every year. 

As Hannah Bourne-Taylor tells us, the problem is that people repair their roofs and replace their soffit boards with plastic ones, which means the nests are dislodged or holes filled in and cannot be re-built. It also means that the returning swifts cannot access their nest any more so fly again and again at the wall searching for last year’s nest, smashing their small bodies against the wall, often until they die trying. This was one of the bits in the book which I found really difficult to read!! 

In the book, Hannah shares with the reader her campaigning journey to launch a petition to gain 100,000 signatures which she thinks naively will automatically mean the Government will discuss this in Parliament. She walks through the streets of London, (one of the highlights of the book), dressed only in a painted-on feather costume to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park and makes her ‘Feather speech’ to launch her petition. She gains lots of media attention and then works tirelessly over the next 6 months to get all of the signatures. Having succeeded the Government then hit her with a body blow as they said they would decide whether they would debate the petition or not! I think this is one of her first lessons in how tough campaigning can be! 

The debate does go ahead – asking for the Government to pass a law that all new builds include a swift brick so that swifts can access it and make a small nest under the eaves of the house. Unfortunately, the Government decided to say no, they said ‘we should not impose conditions and ensure that planning permission are subject to additional and unreasonable requirements to accommodate species that are not present in an area while creating financial burdens to comply with and to discharge conditions’ bearing in mind the cost of the swift brick to a builder is less than £20.00! Also the swifts won’t be present in an area if there is nowhere for them to nest? Mmm – a shame the Government don’t think about that… 

Hannah’s battle continued and is still on-going – with the Government still saying ‘no’ – they say that builders can do this voluntarily and also local county/district councils can ask builders to include the bricks in new builds and can include swift bricks in their local building planning policies. As this is not a law, then every new build in every village or town means someone has to request this…. An on-going battle by an unhelpful Government especially as every builder is going to say ‘no’ as it would cost them more money to implement. 

An amazing read – learning about one woman’s sacrifices and battle to make the Government listen. Her journey to become a campaigner and her story ends with lots of information about how you can help or become a champion to protect this tiny 45-gram miracle of nature. It also has information in the book about what a ‘Swift Brick’ is – hopefully lots of builders will read this book and it will make them see the logic in including them in new builds! 

Definitely worth reading – enjoy!! 

Review by Melanie Wakley

Update on our Planet Over Profit campaign: more organisations support good business

We are delighted to be starting 2026 by announcing that four more Leicester-based organisations are supporting the national ‘Planet Over Profit’ campaign by signing our local open letter to Leicester MPs calling for a Business, Human Rights & Environment Act. This new law would hold companies to account for any harm caused in their supply chain and protect important habitats, workers’ rights and the rights of indigenous people. Companies should be responsible for ensuring that their profits don’t come at the expense of people and planet, but existing laws aren’t holding them to account.

The four latest signatories include a Muslim environmental group, a community centre, a small business and a church:

• Green Guardians
• Highfields Centre
• Currant Affairs
• Christchurch Clarendon Park (Baptist/Methodist LEP Church)

You can read the full text of our open letter and see who had already signed in the previous blog post.

We are also still collecting support from individuals, through postcards (which you can colour in!) and a digital petition to MPs. Please sign our petition if you live in Leicester and share with your family and friends! And if you own a business or are part of a community organisation that might want to support this campaign, please get in touch with us: leicesterfoe@gmail.com.

Pet tick, flea and worm treatments

 Cat and dog owners routinely treat their pets for tick, flea and worm prevention, often throughout the year, but have you stopped to consider where the chemicals in these treatments end up?  Needless to say they end up in the environment, and in us.

There are five common chemicals used in these treatments that end up in the environment that are not certified for agricultural use, yet they have a perpetual licence for use, so no routine way to revoke it.  The table below, extracted from a Pesticide Action Network website details the chemicals and impacts involved.

It makes no sense to ban chemicals from agricultural use but allow them to leach into the environment via our pets. There are over 300 alternative products that do not use these chemicals, so the next time you purchase, or are offered by your vet, a tick, flea or worm treatment, please check the label and look for/request an alternative if it contains one of the chemicals above. 

We can treat our pets safely and protect ourselves and the environment.

Technical notes:

• An ectoparaciticide is an antiparasitic drug (usually a ‘spot-on’ treatment) used to kill parasites that live on the body’s surface (such as ticks and fleas).
• An endectocide is an antiparasitic drug (usually in tablet form) used to kill parasites that live both inside the body (such as worms) and on the body’s surface (such as fleas).
• An endocrine disruptor interferes with hormone systems and can cause birth defects, developmental disorders and reproductive problems such as infertility.

Cop 30 – I found a drum!!

Three travellers set off from Leicester FoE to Birmingham on Saturday 15^th November ’25 to take part in the Global Day of Action to join with allies in the climate movement across the country to stand up for a better future.

The UN talks are well underway at COP 30 – the gathering of World Leaders in Brazil to talk about Climate Change - so we are calling on the UK Government to :

Honour the UK’s pledge to protect forests and particularly the Amazon where the talks are taking place.

Demand justice for frontline communities and make polluters pay for a cleaner, fairer future.

End UK complicity in genocide and environmental ruin in Palestine.

We caught the train to Birmingham and went to our meeting place where we were greeted by a very friendly group of people from Birmingham Friends of the Earth sharing their morning activities with us which were banner making, chanting and ooh yes….  We were asked if we wanted to join a drumming workshop!

We were quickly strapped up with drums for a marching band, taught how to use them and shown how the ‘conductor’ controls the band with hand signals and a series of whistles.  Then we spent an enjoyable morning ‘playing’ on them or at least trying to follow what they were all doing. 

We shared an tasty lunch and were then asked if we wanted to march with the drummers!!  So, we did! 

It was great fun, one of the best things I’ve done for a long time – marching through the streets of Birmingham with a group of enthusiastic, like-minded people, joining in with a Global event, making our voices and drums heard.  Fantastic!

A big thank-you to Birmingham Friends of the Earth for making us so welcome – especially when we didn’t always keep up with the rhythm! 

Let’s hope we can ‘find a drum’ at another event!! 

#ThisWorldIsOurs #cop30

 

Melanie Wakley

Has your dog been ill?

When we talk about pesticides we tend to focus on the harm to flora and fauna (especially pollinators) followed by the impact on human health.  But there’s another group that are impacted that we tend to forget: our dogs and cats. 

Just as our children are in contact with pesticides as they make contact with sprayed areas, so are our dogs and cats. Children playing on the ground can easily make contact with sprayed areas but our pets have no choice: by walking on the ground they are bound to make contact.  Symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning (single incident exposure) in cats and dogs can include vomiting, diarrhoea, drooling, irritation to the skin or eyes, chemical burns, breathing problems, lethargy, disorientation, seizures and even death. While instances of acute pet poisoning are sometimes studied and recorded, there is almost no research on the long-term, chronic effects on pets’ health of regular, ongoing direct exposure to pesticides that have been linked to diseases in humans such as cancer.

Spraying in our parks and green spaces is exactly where we walk our dogs. We recently heard a case where somebody had tied their dog to the railings around a play area, while they took their child inside where dogs aren’t allowed, then ran up a vet’s bill of over £1,000 when the dog fell ill.  The area along the railings had been sprayed.  There has even been a case of a dog dying after lying on a sprayed area and ingesting the poison through its skin.

Making the connection between pets falling ill and pesticide use is in its infancy. The Veterinary Poisons Information Service (VPIS) has recorded a 55% increase in pesticide related poisoning enquiries between 2019 and 2021, but this is only through voluntary contact with the VPIS, so the issue is likely to be much greater.

The lessons to be learnt from this are:        

• Keep your dog away from sprayed areas and especially don’t tie your dog up where it can make contact with a sprayed area.
• If your dog does fall ill with any of the symptoms above and you suspect poisoning visit the VPIS website to get advice.
• Be aware this can affect cats too and as we have no control of where they go outside we have no way of controlling pesticide exposure to cats.
• If you take your dog or cat to the vet and poisoning is suspected, please ask the vet to report it to the VPIS – we need more data.  Vet membership of the VPIS is only £8/month.
• Don’t spray your garden.
• If you get the opportunity to stop the council spraying on the areas outside where you live, please take it.
• If you take your dog across the fields try and avoid sprayed areas.  Farmers often spray round field edges and some crops are sprayed too if the crop has been specially developed to resist pesticide spraying.  Look for the tell-tale tractor wheelings through crops that indicate the passage of a spraying vehicle or brown grass round field edges.
• Be wary of footpaths through crops where the footpath has been cleared of the crop by spraying.
• Don’t let your dog drink from puddles and ponds near sprayed areas.
• If you see spraying taking place try and keep upwind of it and better still avoid the area altogether - for your health too!

Please join Leicester Friends of the Earth in pressing your council not to spray in public parks and green spaces.

Make them pay - a different way?

The “Make them pay” campaign focuses on taxing the super-rich.  Rather than focusing on taxing individuals wouldn’t it be better to tax the source of their wealth, in an ongoing fashion?

The super-rich are all owners of multi-national companies, companies that are able to move their profits to low tax countries claiming money owed for things like licencing, where the tax haven owns the licence for something the company in another country (e.g. the UK) is using, for example the use of the Amazon logo.  This is just a way of moving money around to avoid tax.  There are two obvious consequences of this behaviour: 

1. The UK (and other governments) lose out on tax revenue. In the UK this is corporation tax, a 25% tax on company profits.

2. Companies based purely in the UK that cannot move their profits abroad, so have to pay true corporation tax, cannot compete with multinationals so get squeezed out of business.  Nowhere is this more apparent than Amazon and the impact can be seen in most town shopping centres.

This table of Amazon corporation tax paid, extracted from Ethical Consumer, illustrates the extent of the problem.

So how should we go about changing things?

What we could do is work out tax due as follows:

UK Sales  x Global profit  =  profit from UK sales.
Global Sales

Then tax the profit from UK sales at 25%, with deductions for investment in UK infrastructure, e.g. start-up costs to mitigate against claims we are preventing investment.

Yes, there would be squeals of protest from the super-rich (mostly from the USA) and their tax consultants, but perhaps then we’d breathe some life into our high streets and get some pot holes repaired!  Also we might get some UK based competition going.

The Tax Justice Network is campaigning along these lines but eight countries are blocking UN tax reform, and as you might have guessed, one of them is the UK. This article from the Tax Justice Network outlines the scale of the problem and this article states that eight out of the top ten tax havens are British Overseas Territories: 8 out of the 10 biggest tax havens are British territories. Why?

In conclusion, rather than taxing the super-rich, let’s just level the playing field and create some fairer competition and press our government to get behind the UN tax reform initiative.

Conservative MP helping mining company to sue the Government

We were horrified to hear recently that the Cumbrian Mining Company is suing the British Government for not allowing their proposed coal mine to go ahead in west Cumbria, and that the lawyer representing the company is a Conservative MP! One of our members sent this letter to her own Conservative MP about it - you might like to use her wording to contact your own MP, particularly if they are Conservative.

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Dear [MP’s name]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9391205znwo

I am writing to let you know that the British Government is currently being sued by the Cumbrian Mining Company over the High Court and Coal Authority decision to decline its proposal to build a coal mine in west Cumbria. The Coal Authority found that its proposal was not financially viable and that substantial damage could be caused to land and property in the vicinity. It was also not the case that the coal potentially mined could be used domestically to help generate electricity in this country, as the High Court judgement established that the west Cumbrian coal has too high a sulphur content ever to be used domestically.  It was simply an unworkable proposal which was rightly refused by experts in the coal mining business, which the company should have taken away to have a rethink and come up with something more acceptable. 

Instead, they seem to have been encouraged to take the UK Government to court under the Investor-state-dispute settlement (ISDS) scheme also known as corporate courts for compensation.

This has been possible because their holding companies have been based in Singapore and there is a UK/Singapore treaty with an ISDS clause. 

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/corporate-courts-2/ 

These disputes are not heard in any recognisable and accountable national or international courts but in rather secretive “pop-up” tribunals which have previously been used against countries in the Global South who have been trying to protect their land and communities against destructive mining and other extractive activities undertaken by multinational companies. Global Justice Now has been lobbying governments for many years about these arrangements which effectively are allowing industries which have no viable future in a climate change affected future economy to claim compensation for destructive activities.

In the light of this I was rather surprised to find out that it is the current Conservative MP for Torridge and Taverstock, Sir Geoffrey Cox, the former Attorney General, who is acting for the West Cumbrian Mining Company against the UK government. I find it difficult to understand why Sir Geoffrey is seeking to get compensation for a company proposal which was turned down by the High Court having heard all the evidence on both sides.  I would hope the plea is rejected but if upheld the government could be liable for fines running into thousands of pounds – money which 

would have to come out of our taxes and would not be available for NHS and other essential spending.

I gather Sir Geoffrey earns more than any other MP from outside earnimgs and would no doubt claim a significant proportion of any settlement for his own bank balance. I have always found it difficult to understand how MPs can do a proper full-time job for their constituents while working many hours outside Parliament and sometimes abroad. I suspect that once a date is fixed for this corporate court hearing, the Whips will get very few votes out of Sir Geoffrey until it is finished.  

I had always thought that the Conservative Party was rather in favour of patriotic activity which benefits the country and so I fail to understand why a British Conservative MP should find it necessary, other than for personal gain, to sue his own government for upholding a High Court judgement on behalf of a failed mining company which could not come up with a viable and financially acceptable proposal. Are there no rules against this sort of behaviour by MPs?

I would ask you to do two things.

Please write to Peter Kyle Secretary of State for Business and Trade and ask him to ensure that ISDS clauses are not included in future trade deals as they can be used without justification against the British Government for any action that a company considers is against its interests via unaccountable corporate courts. 

Then, please write to your fellow MP, Sir Geoffrey Cox and ask when the case against the UK Government is likely to take place and why he thinks the Cumbrian Mining Company deserves compensation for its failed application for a proposed mine whose coal could not be used in this country. 

Yours sincerely,

[Name and address]

Thank you to local organisations supporting good business!

As part of the Planet Over Profit campaign, we are collecting support from local organisations for a Business, Human Rights & Environment Act in an open letter to our local MPs. We are grateful to the first four organisations who have signed: 

• The Race Equality Centre
• Leicester & District Trades Union Council
• Green & Pleasant
• Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire

If you own a business or are part of an organisation that might want to support this campaign, please get in touch with us: leicesterfoe@gmail.com 

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Dear Shockat Adam, Liz Kendall and Shivani Raja,

We are writing to you as small business owners, trade unions and community groups in your constituencies of Leicester South, Leicester West and Leicester East. Together, we represent an important cross-section of the local community who wish to buy and supply ethical products and are concerned by the many harms caused by unregulated supply chains—from modern slavery and unfair working conditions, to deforestation and land grabs.

We are writing in support of a new Business, Human Rights & Environment Act, which would hold UK companies and the public sector legally responsible for preventing harm to people and planet in their supply chains, and contribute to a Just Transition to a greener and fairer economy. Such a law would also enable workers, local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the UK and around the world, who are harmed by UK companies or public sector supply chains, to seek justice in a UK court.

The demand for ethical and sustainable products and services in Leicester is now mainstream with many people turning away from companies complicit in environmental harm and human rights abuses. YouGov polling¹ shows that over 80% of UK adults want new UK laws requiring British companies to prevent human rights abuses and serious environmental damage in their operations and supply chains.

We urge you to add your name to the over 50 MP’s and Peers who have signed the Good Business Matters pledge² in support of this new law in parliament and engage with us and Friends of the Earth to ensure it is a fair and robust piece of legislation we can all be proud of. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

1https://corporatejusticecoalition.org/news/press/press-release-four-in-five-uk-adults-support-new-laws-to-tackle-environmental-harm-and-human-rights-abuses-in-company-supply-chains/

2 https://www.goodbusinessmatters.org/

Make Them Pay march in London

Four members of Leicester Friends of the Earth joined people from Nottingham and Leicester on a coach to London for the Make Them Pay march. It was organised by an alliance representing millions of workers, citizens and communities across Britain. The movement has three key demands: 

1. Tax the super-rich 
2. Protect workers, not billionaires 
3. Make polluters pay 

More than 80 organisations are part of this alliance, ranging from Oxfam to the Fire Brigade Union, Patriotic Millionaires to Global Justice Now.  

Climate justice and economic justice go hand-in-hand. For too long, the richest people and most polluting corporations have profited while fuelling the climate crisis – and ordinary people are being left to pay the price as climate impacts become more and more evident in our daily lives.

There were some great speakers in the rally at the end of the march, including Asad Rehman, the new CEO of Friends of the Earth. He pointed out that behind every private jet is a crumbling hospital and behind every rich oil executive is a climate disaster in a country that hasn't benefited from cheap fossil fuels. The problems we are facing are not caused by immigration: that's just the lie they are using to distract us. The problems are caused by greed. The few are screwing over the many and we can't let this continue. It's time to remember who really deserves our anger. It's time to tax the rich.