Survey responses (3)

We sent out a survey in our newletter #57 and 8640 of you responded – which is amazing! Thank you.

Over the Easter period we’ll post five short summaries of the responses – this is the third.

We asked you:

Wild Justice newsletter subscribers generally support a range of other organisations

The UK was split very close to 50:50 on Brexit – Wild Justice newsletter subscribers who voted and disclosed how they voted were almost 75:25 Remain.

Your free text responses indicated a high degree of understanding and support for the way that Wild Justice mixes legal challenges and campaigning approaches:

1. I donate to over 20 organisations each year, but donations to Wild Justice is the ONLY organisation that I feel does not waste my money on ridiculous executive salaries. I believe you are all there not just for your own self satisfaction but that you really care deeply in what you are trying to achieve – so THANKYOU. I support you 100% in trying to tighten and change the present laws regarding our wildlife.
2. I like your logical, committed approach using logical arguments rather than more extreme action. Although I do believe that reasonable , normally quiet people like me will respond and take action if something is inherently unfair.
3. I am very supportive of Wild Justice’s work to “encourage” the statutory authorities to implement existing legislation to protect wildlife, and to work to improve the legislation where needed. Also support and welcome work to combat raptor persecution.
4. Keep up the good work :). Your legal challenges are getting results.
5. I’m really grateful to you all for the work that you are doing. I’m not so clear on my thinking, understanding and knowledge in this area even though I’ve been connecting and supporting campaigns since a teenager; but it feels that Wild Justice shows a really effective and necessary new way to keep a vigilant eye on actions that are harming our wildlife and our natural world, and to take strong action to counteract this. Thank you all once again.
6. We owe you all at Wild Justice a big thank you for all your time and expertise fighting for the protection of our diminishing wildlife. For quite some time now you have been the only ones campaigning with any teeth. A couple of the NGOs in Q5 need to wake up. Thanks again and we will continue to support you.
7. Clear objectives are set with evidence provided and the means to a solution provided. Very proactive organisation.
8. I believe working through legal channels is a sensible and realistic way to try and ‘change the system’, although I also support those who use other methods, eg, Greenpeace and, to some extent, Extinction Rebellion. I am very thankful that Wild Justice is doing what it can to change legislation to protect wild animals and the environment – keep up the good work!
9. Great goals. It’s really heartening to see a group like this prepared to take on the government over its appalling environmental (and related) policies etc.
10. I think the work that you do is admirable; I really like how you use the law to make people and organisations accountable.
11. I like how WJ use the law to determine and clarify processes and actions organisations should take and in that way hold them to account
12. I think yours is a unique and necessary approach to takling the harm being done to wildlife and the environment by those who normally hide behind often outdated and unfit for purpose legislation.
13. I strongly support the efforts by Wild Justice to ensure existing animal welfare laws are stringently applied and the efforts to introduce new laws to stop animal suffering.
14. Think you’re doing a great job in a very difficult area. The law relating to the protection of wildlife and environment is often weak, poorly enforced and sadly exploited. An organisation such as yours is really needed. Well done for all your efforts
15. I am very glad Wild Justice has come into being and has such a strong focus and direction. I wish you great success. We need a voice to open the eyes of those who are blind to or ignore the dangers that our world faces and someone to act impartially and decisively on behalf our wildlife. More power to your elbow!
16. To me Wild Justice feels like a fresh, strong, professional, effective organisation which highlights, supported by facts, the wildlife persecution and damage to natural habitats that is happening today and fights effectively in getting present laws changed to better protect wildlife and natural habitats. The barbaric cruelty to wildlife haunts me and that it is allowed to go on despite evidence of lawbreaking because of loopholes in the law and associations with the perpetrators sickens me. I do appreciate the guidance you give through your unassuming newsletters when asking supporters to write to mp’s etc. it is good to have facts to hand. THANK YOU for all you are doing and please keep going. K
17. The reason we support WJ is because our country needs a body to stand up for wildlife; EU laws have still not yet been made law here (as far as I am aware), wildlife crime is a huge problem, from hare coursing to raptor killing , and even though there is often evidence there are very few prosecutions and they are not enough of a deterrent to change some peoples behaviour. Landowners should be brought to task and not allowed to simply sack the employee who was carrying out their instruction. Unfortunately in this country wildlife comes second to money and its very sad. DEFRA and Natural England do not appear to be playing the role that many of us think they should be, sanctioning culls of wild birds for instance and giving out licences to kill – its disgusting. We also find it very sad that we can go for a 10 mile walk in the countryside and see very little wildlife, in fact there is more in our garden nature reserve when we get home! This needs to change. We both think your cause is incredibly important and wholly necessary. Well done WJ!
18. I think you’re doing a great job in lobbying and campaigning successfully for changes in the law that make a difference to wildlife and the environment.
19. I think you are doing an important job. There is little point campaigning to change the law if laws are not enforced. I should try harder to be a more active supporter!
20. Very impressed by what you have achieved so far and your approach to challenging the state organisations supposedly protecting the wider public’s interests
21. I think this is an excellent organisation. It is very important that where legislation exists to protect wildlife – that it is adhered to, and just as importantly – properly enforced.
22. I support the way that you’re tackling issues that other wildlife organisations seem less able/willing to take direct action on.
23. It’s great that someone is making a stand the way Wild Justice is. Thank you
24. Wild Justice, along with a few other organisations and initiatives recently, has provided renewed hope that things can and will change for the better. As someone who has worked in conservation for 20+ years in the charity and public sector I was becoming very jaded and quite despondent in the face of witnessing continuing damage to our natural heritage from things such as DGS and improper use of General Licensing, especially since moving north for work. The existence of WJ has injected a much needed burst of positivity into the conservation debate and I expect I’m not the only person it has given a bit more momentum to.
25. Keep up the great work, I like the fact that you are prepared to take on Defra and the Government to insist on positive change for wildlife.
26. There is a real need for Wild Justice – to bring issues such as you are doing into the courts – to be decided by laws – so government has to abide by it’s own rules as it expects from Joe public to do.
27. I admire your strategy of ‘playing them at their own games’. I despair at the way the legal profession in general has developed into a highly expensive ‘game of words’, but realise that it has to be used as one of the approaches to save our planet.
28. I feel wild justice is a new and vital way of holding the government to account. Taking legal action, in my opinion, is the best way to improve the laws and ensure organisations are adhering to current laws. I would like to see improvements to laws concerning pollution of the environment, especially our water ways and better protection for habits – we can’t just keep building as a way to improve the economy. I do believe in what you’re doing and embedding it in law is the best way to do it!
29. Power concedes nothing without demands. Keep making DEMANDS.
30. I just think you are bringing to every ones attention the questions that no one else has the balls to ask, and I think that’s vital.
31. Think you are doing a good job. It really should be done by Natural England but they have been so curtailed by Defra who appear to be in the shooting /and purely farming interests.
32. I think you’re doing an excellent and much-needed job. It’s a shame that some of the other, long-established, wildlife conservation bodies – notably RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, but also WWT, Butterfly Conservation, Plantlife, etc, etc – haven’t come together to develop a stronger and higher profile sector-wide approach to the issues you’re now addressing; and I also think that you need to hold their feet to the fire so they don’t feel able to continue to ignore the more difficult issues just because you’re now addressing them. It’s important to show decision makers and the wider public that Wild Justice is representative of the sector as a whole, rather than risking being portrayed as a radical or fringe group.
33. I think you’re doing an invaluable job in conserving wildlife and confronting this corrupt government and their rich cronies who frequently talk about being conscientious ecologists and yet in their actions do just the opposite. Thanks for doing the job so well and being such a strong public / media presence.
34. I greatly admire what you are doing to tackle the injustice to wildlife. You appear to have made strides where others have failed by being prepared to go to court and challenge policy. I think the action on general licences was a good one.
35. I am genuinely impressed by what a small group of people, with a clear agenda and none of the “baggage” of the large NGOs, can achieve. Thank you for taking these fights to the courts and holding those in power to account in a way the large NGOs (RSPB and wildlife trusts) repeatedly fail to do. I see my contributions to wild justice as some of the most worthwhile charitable contributions I can make.
36. I like your assertive legally competent approach to tackling environmental issues. I am impressed by your collective expertise.
37. Finally an organisation prepared to stand up for wildlife through the courts. Protesting is all well and good but this is the only way to effect real change. Well done.
38. What you are doing is incredibly important. Government and those who think themselves entitled to treat environmental concerns with contempt must be held to account and since brexit has removed the ECJ level of censure it only leaves organisations like you to take action.
39. The UK has many laws that are important for wildlife and the environment that are not enforced, and there are many that we need but don’t have. Wild Justice seems to be attempting to correct the situation.
40. Wild Justice has tackled important issues head on and not been afraid to go to the heart of power. Your vast experience and great credentials are well respected by all who are passionate about wildlife and sustaining this beautiful planet we live on – great job guys
41. I support and admire Wild Justice for its uncompromising and outspoken campaigning. For too long landowners and the wealthy have behaved as if they have the right to destroy and ill-treat wildlife and the countryside.
42. I’ve been impressed with your actions against the General Licences. These and also the questions concerning uncontrolled release of game birds into the environment are certainly good examples of causes I am willing to give strong support to.
43. I support Wild Justice because it takes an activist position on issues concerning bird and animal conservation and protection, I have a deep concern about a society that allows people to slaughter wildlife for fun or to protect their prey, it is time landowners and mangers are made personally responsible for the actions of their gamekeepers. I have been keen on birdlife for all of my life but withdrew my support for RSPB for whom I volunteered, when they became a glossy talking shop and now focus on Wild Justice and BTO.
44. Wild Justice appears to me to be a welcome, and complementary, addition to other conservation organizations. I like the way it comes across as active, professional and focussed. I like that Wild Justice progresses with challenging existing law to improve it and make it more precisely correct. Having Chris Packham as one of the ‘leaders’ is a strong positive for me as I respect and like him, purely through his television and radio presentations and persona.
45. At last! An organisation which does not fear losing members because they rattle a few cages. It is what real conservationists have been missing – a body which fights back, with teeth bared. Keep it up.
46. I support as many organisations as i can who try to look after our natural world. Yours appears to be one which tackles issues by trying to change laws. This is the way forward rather than just mud slinging as it that method goes nowhere. Keep up the good work. Brains over threats will prevail .
47. I think you are doing a great job and that legal challenges are the way forward to protect and restore wildlife. I’d like to support you as much as I can.
48. You are doing valuable, specific, constructive work that recognises and uses the power of legislation as well as fighting for hearts and minds. I should get more involved – so many calls on my time, so hard to know where to focus my energy – thankyou for doing it for me!
49. What I like about Wild Justice is that there’s no spin or hyperbole. The Directors are clearly passionate about the things they take on and they do so logically and legally backed up by fact and reason. How can you argue with that? I am equally passionate about the other organisations I support but there is something different about Wild Justice and how it speaks to me personally. I like that.
50. Love the way you are taking on the Establishment & its purpose to protect land owners, farmers, the gun lobby, hunting lobby etc and their rights at the legal level. Making it much harder (and making their actions transparent) for them to continue damaging the environment for the profit motive that drives them. Enforcement is everything in the end, but great to see you putting them on the spot, even if they drag their heels, don’t follow legal judgments or deliberately ignore the law. They’ve had it easy and their way for far too long!
51. I think that what you are doing is brilliant and the reason why I say this is because you are using the law to achieve your and my aims and objectives. Your objective and factual approach to issues based on science and the law does not leave a lot of room for people and organisations who break the law to manoeuvre. The more that you use the law against these people the better off our wildlife will be. Wild Justice has done more in the past couple of years than I ever thought possible and what you are doing clearly works (well, most of the time). I am sorry that you as individuals have come under some very nasty treatment from certain people and organisations and that it cannot be easy for you at times, so thank you for all that you have done and will continue to do. Thanks also to your legal teams. One thing that concerns me is how difficult it is for surveillance evidence to be accepted and used in Court for criminal proceedings and I wondered if there was anything that WJ can do to help bring about changes in the law to resolve this issue. The Guardia Civil in Spain seem to have some good outcomes from using sniffer dogs and powers that allow them to go on any land at any time. Can we not petition for these types of resources and powers? Keep using the law to fight for wildlife, it’s the only way forward.

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