Thank you, TCV!
(TCV is short for The Conservation Volunteers and if you don’t know about TCV, you really should. It’s been doing brilliant work for 65 years – so get on the page!)
I have to admit I’ve found the last 10 days almost impossibly difficult. I (sort of) admire those of my colleagues seeking diligently to carve out new ‘narratives of hope’ after Trump’s sweeping electoral triumph. I can find none. It is a 100% unmitigated horror story for the world (and for women in particular), for Nature, for the Climate, and for future generations.
Let’s not gloss this. We need to sink deep down into the pain of this moment, with CoP29 providing the grimmest background music, informed by the surefire knowledge that 2024 will soon be declared as the hottest year to date – with an average temperature in excess of 1.5OC. An additional dagger to our hearts.
So, thank you TCV – for dragging me out of this slough of despond in which I found myself! On Tuesday, I attended TCVs Heroes Awards ceremony in Edinburgh, celebrating TCVs 65th Anniversary and honouring 4 out of 1300 local initiatives established and managed by TCV today. It provided inspiration by the bucketful!
If you have time, do please check out these little films from the four winners. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCehf2A5FE
Don’t get me wrong. This community-based conservation work is hard to sustain. Critical individuals come and go. Income ebbs and flows (hats off, in passing to the people’s Post Code Lottery for its incredibly loyal support to TCV). Media interest is often ludicrously difficult to attract.
But what an uplift it was to be reminded of the work of tens of thousands of volunteers, and hundreds of dedicated staff, connecting people to their local environment and, through that, to all the wonders of the natural world. Plus a whole lot more in terms of all the extraordinary health benefits for people working with others in nature.
However wonderful, it will obviously take more than one glittering moment of hope to dispel my current gloom. But it sure as hell helped!
Jonathon Porritt
15 November 2024
