The blog of Leicester Friends of the Earth, a grassroots environmental action group. We campaign on issues such as climate change, fracking, air pollution and plastic.
Today we had a stall at the Eco Church 10th Anniversary Celebration. We spoke to church members from across Leicestershire who are working to care for the natural world by greening their buildings and their land, engaging with their local community and discussing how they can make a difference in their lifestyles. It was a lovely event and we had some useful conversations about moving away from using pesticides in the management of churchyards.
The recent disaster in Nepal is a stark reminder that the climate crisis is not some potential future problem, but something that the human race is already living through.
Like many groups, we tend to be less active during the summer, while our campaigners are taking well earned holidays. But we do always have a social in August! On Saturday, we met up in Knighton Park for a Bee Picnic, with everyone encouraged to dress in yellow and brown or black if possible. Our good friend Sir David came along as well, much to the amusement of passers-by.
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While we were all together, we took the opportunity to create a dancing bees video, which we will be using to publicise our pesticide-free gardens pledge - look out for that on our social media soon...
This summer, Insecta Collective invited members of the public to experience A Celebration of Biodiversity, with an inspiring exhibition bringing together artists of all ages from Leicester and around the world in shared appreciation of the natural world.
This was a wonderful exhibition and we were invited to display some of the environmental work which we have been doing recently.
The exhibition was at the Lower Gallery, Leicester Adult Education Centre and ran from 27th July to 14th August. If you missed it here are a few pictures of the wonderful display.
The exhibition adopted an innovative hybrid format, combining a physical gallery with a 3D virtual exhibition showcasing a truly global celebration of creativity and conservation work which has been taking place.
The exhibition encouraged people living in urban communities to reconnect with nature, highlighting the beauty and importance of biodiversity and inspiring visitors to seek meaningful interactions with the natural world in their everyday lives. It also included a lot of artwork from children who shared their joy in nature.
Thank you Insecta Collective for a wonderful display and for inviting Leicester FoE to join in!
Melanie Wakley
This book is written by Tony Juniper CBE a leading
environmentalist who actively defends Nature and has done so for over 40 years.
He has led major organisations, run global campaigns and advised governments at
the highest levels so when he identifies the real problems at the heart of the
climate and nature crises we should all listen especially when he also
identifies a hopeful way forward.
I liked the history in this book detailing how Middlesbrough
gave birth to the modern world with the first port being built there and a
major shipbuilding industry emerging. This led to chemical factories and foundries
bursting into life. The new steam powered ships and railways meaning heavy
goods could be moved easily. By 1889 Juniper says the industrial revolution had
burst forth and is the reason the future of civilization is at risk because we
developed and expanded our demands without taking into account the world’s life
support systems. Our crises now, he continues, is that we keep demanding more
of the Earth’s finite resources. The question Juniper says is ‘no longer
whether we have a serious challenge on our hands but at what point will it
become unmanageable?’
He describes how the late 1950’s and early 1960’s led to
living standards being raised - it was the era of ‘the baby boomers’ and the
first decade of the Great Acceleration. The post war explosion in consumption
began and negative environmental consequences started to be felt. The photo ‘Earthrise’ taken from Apollo 8 in
1968 allowed people to look back at the world and delivered a powerful message
inspiring environmental activism – Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were
both founded at that time. Rachel Carson published ‘Silent Spring’ in 1962. He
says the 1990’s was a golden time for environmental groups and describes the
history of activism and conferences that took place and agreements reached as
people became aware of the problems approaching. In 2015 a new set of
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) were set with a target of 2030. Targets
that were set 30 years ago - but have still not been achieved.
Juniper goes on to explain how the factories caused
pollution and how the more affluent people tended to move away from these areas
and the less affluent got left behind. He also explains how society became more
unequal and while billionaires built their remote bunkers, climate collapse began
to impact the most vulnerable in society, affecting them first and the hardest.
Juniper points out that the former Chief Economist of the World Bank said
‘Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen’.
Juniper stresses that polluting companies such as Shell are not in the business
to end poverty or to combat climate change. They are structured to maximise
profits and twist any narrative to ensure they achieve their goal. Politicians
also are making decisions for us that only do what they think the voters will
vote for not what will solve the problems of the less affluent or solve the
problems of climate change. Hence the targets set do not get achieved and we
have become a very unequal society.
Juniper ends with stressing how our world has also become
detached from nature and how our progress in solving climate change is held
back – not by lack of facts or good policy options – we have had those for
years! We are held back by deep views in
economic ideas, political priorities and cultural norms and because of our
nature detached worldview which means we do not pay enough attention in our
every day lives to the climate problems evolving around us our climate change
progress to solve the problems does not get achieved.
Juniper sets out his hopes for the future – trying to get
society to become more equal and getting people to reconnect with nature right
across societies would help to create a mandate for actions needed to halt and
reverse the decline of life on Earth and if we respond in the right way, it
could be less about seeing these solutions as a sacrifice and more about
opportunity.
This is a complicated read with a good basis in facts and some new ideas about how to try to solve some of our climate problems – well worth a read!
As members of Friends of the Earth, we welcome moves by government to make greener transport more accessible and attractive to citizens. The recent announcement by Andy Burnham that bus fares will be capped at £2 per journey from January looked, at first glance, like unequivocally good news in this respect.
Many of us, however, felt quite differently about the announcement when we discovered how the government plans to pay for it: by turning the UK’s international aid grants into loans. The effect of this will be that people in many countries in the Global South will be made worse off to pay for something that looks more like a cynical sound bite than a sensible and sustainable policy.
It is unacceptable that a plan for cheaper UK buses pits desperate people in other countries against cash-strapped commuters here. It suggests that we can’t fix the local cost of living crisis, fund greener transport and meet our global aid commitments without somebody losing out.
We think our new PM can do better than that. What do you think?
In an article in the Leicester Mercury titled ‘Campaigners celebrate as pesticide use ended’ published on February 27th 2026, the Leicester Mercury quoted a spokesperson for Leicester City Council who apparently had said that, ‘We use glyphosate-based products that are non-toxic to humans and animals and controlled droplet applicators for targeted spraying’.
We were concerned about this statement because this was never
mentioned in our meeting with Leicester City Council; there are no glyphosate-based
products that are non-toxic. Any products that contain glyphosate are obviously
toxic as glyphosate is known to cause cancer. We mentioned further on in the
press release, which we had sent to the Leicester Mercury, ‘The journal
article that had previously been used to claim that glyphosate was safe was
retracted by the publisher last year, because they discovered the company that
makes glyphosate had been involved in the research’.
We contacted Leicester City Council to ask who had made the comment, but they did not know. We then
contacted the Leicester Mercury to ask where they had got the statement which had
been made by ‘a spokesperson for the City Council’. Eventually it was established by the Mercury
that they hadn’t actually spoken to anyone at the Council but had taken
an out-of-date statement from Leicester City Council's website and used that in
the article.
We asked the Leicester Mercury to print a ‘Clarification’, which they did on Friday May 29th 2026, but unfortunately, they still
did not make it clear where the statement came from. Their clarification read:
‘As set out in the article, a new study discovered that glyphosate
is indeed a toxic substance, and the council subsequently agreed to cease its
use in children’s play areas as a result.’
So it still wasn’t actually transparent that they took
information from a Council website and didn’t actually speak to anyone from the
Council.
We would also like to mention that Leicester City Council
are still spraying the rest of the parks with glyphosate, which is a toxic poison
to humans, animals including dogs, insects as well as to the ‘weeds’ which the
Council are trying to kill.
To encourage Leicester City Council to stop using glyphosate
in our parks and green spaces, we want to show them that Leicester’s gardeners
can mange without pesticides. We have created a pledge which we would
love you to sign: Pledge to go
pesticide-free.
It’s not too late to make a spring resolution for your
garden for 2026. 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.
Please help!
Melanie Wakley
Yesterday was the national Day of Action on the Planet Over Profit campaign, when Friends of the Earth groups across the countries met their local MPs to call for a new Business, Human Rights and Environment Act. The new law would ensure that UK companies are held responsible for environmental harm and human rights abuses in their supply chains.
We met Shockat Adam, the MP for Leicester South, at his constituency office to hand in our petition and postcards from members of the public calling for a new law. We were joined by representatives of 15 local organisations who have signed an open letter calling for a new law, including Leicester Quakers, Global Justice Leicester, Stoneygate Baptist Church, Unite the Union Community Branch, The Race Equality Centre and Pioneer Parishes.
Shockat Adam has already signed the Good Business Matters pledge, which so far has the backing of more than 80 MPs and peers and 50 high profile UK businesses, including John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and Aviva. We asked him to act on his pledge and back the campaign for a new law to hold UK companies to account for harm to people and the environment.
The petition, postcards and open letter demonstrate the strength of local support for a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act (BHREA). Under the new legislation, UK companies would be held legally responsible for preventing harm to people and the planet in their supply chains, no matter where they operate – whether here in the UK or overseas.
Through the materials they source to make their products, too many UK companies are fuelling environmental damage and endangering communities around the globe. In parts of South East Asia and South America, forests are being cleared, rivers polluted and habitats destroyed as highly sought-after commodities like palm oil, soy and timber are cultivated with little regard for their environmental and social impact.
Products linked to these abuses then end up on the UK market – whether it’s the food we buy at the supermarket, the cosmetics on our bathroom shelf or the way we furnish our homes.
Meanwhile, Indigenous communities that depend on and protect these precious ecosystems are being forced from their lands, threatened with violence and denied access to the natural resources they rely on. The new law would provide communities on the front lines of harm a legal route to justice when their rights are violated.
According to polling by YouGov for the Corporate Justice Coalition , a whopping 80% of people support the demand for a new law to tackle harm to people and the environment. There is overwhelming public support for the government to act.
Shockat Adam was invited to show his support for the campaign by taking a photo with the group, holding a placard backing the new law.
It’s unthinkable that so many of the products we buy could be linked to horrific environmental and human rights abuses, and that UK companies are complicit. Most people do not want to buy something that is causing harm in another country, but consumers cannot trace what damage has been done in a supply chain. It’s high time businesses were held accountable for their harmful practices here at home and overseas – it couldn’t be clearer that the public wants the government to act.
We’re really pleased that Shockat Adam is supporting the growing calls for a new Business, Human Rights and Environment Act, which would protect people and planet from harm at the hands of UK companies and give affected communities a legal route to justice. We hope that the other MPs representing the people of Leicester and Leicestershire will support this vital campaign.
Less than a week before we meet Leicester South MP Shockat Adam to talk about our work on the 'Planet Over Profit' campaign, two more local organisations have signed our open letter supporting a new law to protect people and the environment. We welcome this support from Parents for Future Leicestershire and Neve Shalom Synagogue. We've had four new signatories this month, with 17 signatures in total. Some of our partners from these organisations will be joining our meeting with Shockat, to explain why they think a new law is so important.
We have also been out and about talking to members of the public about the need for a new law and we have collected postcards from people expressing their support. If you haven't had chance to fill in a postcard, you can still sign our digital petition: Leicester for fair supply chains But please be quick! We'll be closing this on Thursday.
