Post 452 - Petition update

Looking after the little things that rule the world!

Hey everyone, Post 452 and first things first Happy New Year! I hope you all have a wonderful, wildlife filled 2017.

Dad and I did a little film on post 450 that showed some of the things that I had been up to this year. One of the things I did was to start a petition. After reading and talking a lot about Brexit I began to understand that we would probably need a whole new set of laws when we leave the EU as a lot of our laws are made by Europe. Not everyone is happy about that, but some laws that we have from the EU are some good laws that protect nature. So I thought it would be good to try and help nature and try to get those laws saved.

The petition is linked here.

It's really interesting doing a petition and starting to watch it grow. You really don't know when you start off if any one will agree with you apart from the few people that have to sign to start you off. So with only a few days left on the petition, which closes on the 6th January, I am amazed that 7,157 people have signed. Thank you so much everyone who's signed and those who supported my Thunderclaps.

Let's see better wildlife protection to #defendnature when we leave the EU. Please sign to get strong UK laws.

https://t.co/QnCBBzlcLb

— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) 17 September 2016

I had started to get a bit excited that I might get a response from government as the numbers started to grow but with only a few days left I know that probably won't happen. I'm not too disappointed though as a couple of things have happened which I think are positive for nature by the Government.

On my petition page the Government did sort of respond and put two links to some very long videos of sessions of the Environment Audit Committee. In one of them Andrea Leadsom, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is questioned. It all seems very complicated but I've talked about it with my family and I think it's going to be like this:

How will our environment be looked after?

• When we leave the EU there will be a bill - the Great Repeal Bill - which means that all EU laws will become UK laws.
• Some laws may need some technical legal changes to be brought into UK law.
• Then the Government will examine all the laws and see if we want to keep them, change them or scrap them.
• This might take quite a long time so some people are asking that laws that are not looked at in 5 years are scrapped.
• The department that looks after the environment DEFRA is producing a 25 year plan to look after the environment.
• All of the work done by the Environmental Audit Committee is being put into a report just before my petition closes

We publish our report on the Future of the Natural Environment after the EU Referendum this Wednesday. Follow us for updates on the day. pic.twitter.com/tFqoX72EVO

— Env Audit Committee (@CommonsEAC) 2 January 2017

So, the good news is that there are lots of people that are already looking at laws that will be needed to look after nature when we leave Europe. When we leave the EU all the laws will become UK laws, but Government will review them.  Perhaps the not so good news is that the person in charge has also said they want to have a vote to repeal the hunting ban!

We've asked Govt, academics & policy experts about the Natural Environment after the EU Ref. Read our report on Jan 4th. #PostEUEnvironment pic.twitter.com/BOjzF8hNB2

— Env Audit Committee (@CommonsEAC) 27 December 2016

A lot of changes are planned and I think we will all need to spend 2017 watching the changes closely!

Here's the petition link again :-)

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.