Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister at a time when everything costs more than it should, our NHS and public services are stretched, and places around the UK feel forgotten. It’s led many to feel that Britain is broken. Yet the foundation to fixing these challenges is growing all around us.
Take the cost of living. So far in this decade, the price of bread has gone up by 12%, milk by 22%, eggs by 44%1, and orange juice a staggering 134%. Food prices are rising, as environmental decline and climate change, both at home and abroad, impact global food supplies.
The answer is to produce more home-grown food in ways that will allow us to keep on growing for centuries to come. To do this, we need to reward farmers to look after the soils, pollinating insects and water that underpin our ability to grow good British produce, now and into the future.
The route to reliable, affordable food in the long term runs through nature-friendly British farms.
Looking after our land means it will look after us, and the same is true of water. In an age of stormier winters and hotter summers, wetlands can help us manage this precious resource better.
Burnham has seen and supported this in the Greater Manchester area, where the Wildlife Trust’s efforts to restore bogs and marshes have helped to store and filter the water many Mancunians drink. These natural solutions aren’t just cleaning up our drinking supplies naturally, reducing the need for expensive chemical treatments, they’re also preventing flooding during storms and maintaining supply through droughts, lowering water bills and flooding costs in the process.
With towns and cities are baking in repeated heatwaves, how the environment affects health is at the top of many minds, and natural solutions exist here too. Concrete traps and retains heat, but trees, ponds and parks offer shade and cooling. More nature near where we live means cooler homes.
Beyond the obvious health benefits from lowering heat, studies show that time spent in woods and hills makes people calmer, happier and more connected to friends and family.
Children who study in nature do better at school2, and people suffering from poor mental health recover faster when time outdoors is part of their treatment.
When we fix nature, we can fix so much more. Nature can help us to a calmer, happier country – and a prouder one too. Polling shows that that our nature and NHS are the two things that make people feel proudest about Britain.3 Every community should have local nature to feel proud about; bees to zip from flower to flower, beavers in the local river, falcons nesting on the church tower, an oak wood on the hill for children to make camps in.
Burnham has promised to give people "hope back" and to deliver “good growth in every postcode”. Nature is here to help with these objectives, from reducing cost of living to bringing pride back to places forgotten by Westminster.
As the new Prime Minister looks to bring hope back, bringing nature back is the perfect place to start.