On the very day we marched to St Paul’s Cathedral, Archbishop Justin Welby issued this statement.

We at Wild Card applaud the Archbishop’s clear and positive response to our campaign calling for 30% of Church land to be rewilded by 2030. We’re delighted that he “welcomes the initiative” and shares our concerns around biodiversity decline. We hope this means we’ll be able to get a meeting in with him person to discuss this further and to hand him our 100,000 strong petition. 

However, in the midst of nature’s heart wrenching and catastrophic collapse warm words are not enough. Nature needs large areas of land to be completely freed from extractive industry or farming so that it can begin to heal. To safeguard the precious creation entrusted to us, Mr Welby and the Church Commissioners now need to transform their good intentions into a clear, accountable and area based rewilding target that sets aside at least 30% of their estate for nature restoration. We simply have no time left for more tinkering around the edges with vague biodviersity commitments. The big question that matters is now: how many acres are you rewilding and when are you starting? 

As with many Church communications on land to date, there seems to be some confusion around numbers regarding their landholdings, with multiple different acreages quoted to parliament, in reports and in the Archbishop’s statement. It would be a huge step forward for the Church to release a map of its landholdings to settle this and allow for checks on claims of biodiversity. Without transparency how can Church goers and citizens hold this vast landowner to account? 

We also strongly agree that it is important to achieve a balance between all the competing needs for land, including housing and food production. With the Church of England having the lowest tree coverage of England’s top 10 landowners (with just 4% tree cover!) and with more than half its protected sites in unfavourable condition, we’re sure that Mr Welby would agree that that balance is miles off being achieved. 

Thankfully housing by is extremely land efficient. Our analysis suggest that just 0.2% of the UK’s land would be needed to build 3 million homes over the next 10 years. If the Church met this target on their own land whilst also meeting the United Nation’s crucial 30×30 nature target this would leave 69.8% of Church land available for commercial forestry and farming. This sounds like a good balance to us.