Three years ago…

Three years ago today, Wild Justice was incorporated as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. We think of 13 February 2019 as our day of birth, because that was when we launched ourselves to the public, we’re not sure what that makes today…

It’s only three years, but we’ve come a long way. What have we achieved? Here are some examples;

• We’ve done the dull but important things of setting ourselves up, having a website (with content), having a bank account (with some money in it), having a newsletter with c50,000 subscribers (slightly fewer right now, the number fluctuates), doing our accounts, paying our taxes etc.
• We’ve got involved in issues such as general licences, release of non-native gamebirds, Badger culls, Beaver reintroductions, illegal persecution of Hen Harriers and other raptors, the Environment Bill in England, lead ammunition, glyphosate use by local authorities and a few more. In all cases we’ve made a difference – sometimes a small difference and sometimes a bigger difference. We are often told that our presence has created an atmosphere where governments and agencies are more careful about what they do because, for the first time for ages, they may face legal challenges from a determined group.
• We’ve stayed friends, the three of us, and we’ve made more friends in the outside world, and we’ve irked some people too. We think that all the irked people are people we don’t mind irking. We’ve worked with other organisations in joint campaigns, often through Wildlife and Countryside Link, and we’re happy to muck in with others if we can make a real difference.
• We’ve attracted a lot of public support from those who want non-governmental organisations to take a more active and robust approach. We think we’ve identified a niche and helped to fill it.

It’s a start, but what of the future? Here are some things we’ve decided and some things we are thinking about:

• we’re going to employ our first staff member fairly soon – a part-time post helping us with the mundane running of things but also with setting up new campaigns and new legal cases.
• we’re not going to move from being a not-for-profit company to a charity in the near future – there would be some financial benefits, but not huge ones, and there would be higher administrative costs and restrictions on the types of things we could say.
• we’re not going to sell you merchandise – the world is full of stuff, and that’s one of the problems with it. We retain the right to change our minds on this in the future!
• we’re going to continue with a mixture of campaigning and legal challenge – bringing them together to help nature is what we’re about.

Why Wild Justice is different:

• we don’t have members who pay us a subscription – we depend on public donations exclusively. If you don’t like what we are doing then you won’t donate, and then we’ll fizzle out. It’s a very pure funding strategy.
• we promote the work and campaigns of other organisations – you don’t see that very often in the world of wildlife non-governmental organisations
• we are robust – we’ll take anyone on, and we’re not that bothered what the Establishment thinks of us
• we’re making challenges that wildlife would make if they had a voice