Today the European Parliament joined EU Environment Ministers and over half a million of Europeans in speaking up to defend the Nature Directives, the vital laws that protect our nature. (A reminder of why the vote was important for the Nature Directives here and our habitats and wildlife here.)
Over the last 3 weeks you've collectively sent over 16,900 messages to your MEPs, reaching every constituency and party. Thank you for keeping on the pressure! Your letters were personal and heartfelt, and they got noticed.
Thanks to the responses you sent on to us, we had a fair idea ahead of today which way MEPs from each UK party might vote, but by no means enough responses to work out if we had a UK majority, let alone one across the EU.
Well, the result was met with much cheering in the office. Watching the live stream, I just about captured this screenshot of the voting results as they flashed up – as you can see from the sea of green dots, the report passed with a huge majority and support from every EU political group!
There was a debate on the report before this afternoon's vote, which I watched online, thanks to the European Parliament's live streaming service. It was a first for me; I’ve never watched any of the Parliament’s business before and it was clear how much they had already covered on both days whilst I was waiting for the sections I was keen to listen to. After a very long day of similar debates, 16 MEPs from across Europe and the political spectrum took to the floor. The used their short speeches to defend the Natures Directives and call for them to be properly put into practice, not changed. Almost every one also mentioned the huge volume of public support for nature protection, and that's thanks to your efforts this year and last in standing with us to defend nature!
Thank you. Together we’ve secured some really strong political backing for these laws, but the results of the evidence-based review of the Nature Directives are still to be announced. The draft conclusions demonstrated the clear weight of evidence that they work and need to be properly put into practice. We’ll be keeping up the pressure on the European Commission until these laws are safe.
As always, you can find the latest on the campaign at www.rspb.org.uk/DefendNature.