Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company set up by three of the UK’s most renowned campaigners and conservationists: Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham, and Dr Ruth Tingay. It launched on the 13th of February this year, with the aim of taking legal cases on behalf of wildlife against public bodies where they are failing to protect species and/or habitats.

Legal action will be funded by public donations and crowdfunding appeals.

Charlie Moores met up with Dr Mark Avery to discuss the new organisation and ask why they’d chosen to start by mounting a legal challenge to the General Licence, legislation which, in the words of Wild Justice, has led to the casual killing of birds…

Chris, Mark, and Ruth have become increasingly vocal on the issues around wildlife crime and the law, and on the Wild Justice website all three come out swinging:

• Chris Packham says that “The message is clear…if you are breaking the law, if the law is weak, if the law is flawed – we are coming for you.”
• Mark Avery that “It’s a shame that we have to do this but we have little confidence that statutory bodies are fulfilling their functions properly. We aim to hold their feet to the fire in court”.
• And Ruth that “Wild Justice provides an opportunity for ordinary citizens to fight back on behalf of wildlife, collectively helping us to challenge poor decisions or flawed policies that threaten to harm our wildlife.”

Three cheers for three statements from three campaigners with reputations for telling things as they are…

Charlie Moores went to meet Mark Avery to discuss the new organisation and why they’d chosen to start by mounting a legal challenge to the general licence, legislation which in the words of Wild Justice, has led to the casual killing of birds …but he began by asking him about the origins of Wild Justice: was he correct in supposing that as the three Directors and Carole Day from solicitors Leigh Day all worked together during the writing of ‘A People’s Manifesto for Wildlife’ last year, it had been then that talks about setting up what became Wild Justice had started…

“…we are going for this in the expectation that we will win…and it would be unfair to say what percentage our lawyers say is the chance of winning, but our lawyers say this is a very good case…

Dr Mark Avery | Wild Justice and challenging the General Licence

March 2019