Sign our Open Letter
- Add your voice to our Church Land Use Campaign
Did you know that Churches are some of the largest landowners in the country?
Yet a lot of church land is causing environmental degradation, for example through excessive pesticide runoff from agricultural land causing river pollution and degraded peatland emitting carbon dioxide.
We are calling on Churches to ensure their land is part of the solution and not part of the problem, for example, growing trees, sustainable farming, and restoring peatland.
Sign your name onto this open letter to be handed in to national church leaders across all major UK denominations on World Environment Day, 5th June 2025.
We’d love to include your stories of local projects you’re involved with or inspired by that use land or produce in ways that benefit the climate and environment, and inspire church leaders to do the same and get behind this campaign.
To: +Steven Cottrell – Archbishop of York
+Vincent Nichols – Archbishop of Westminster
Revd Rosemary Frew – Moderator of the Church of Scotland
Most Revd Andrew John, Archbishop of Wales
Steve Finamore – President of the Baptist Union
Revd Helen Cameron – President of the Methodist Conference
Paul Parker – Recording Clerk, Quakers in Britain
We, the undersigned, feel strongly that action to reduce emissions and protect nature on church land is an important part of the prophetic leadership that is so desperately needed at this time.
We would like to challenge you, as representatives of our national church bodies, to be more accountable for your use of land and investments in land, recognising the importance of being good stewards of the land under our care.
We call on church landowners to take urgent action on the seven areas of Operation Noah’s Church Land Use Vision by the end of 2025, using church land for climate and biodiversity benefit.
Where your denomination owns minimal land, we ask you to publicly support Operation Noah’s Church Land Use Vision, and pursue ways to support sustainable land use via your investments and through amplifying the call to others.
Where we know of inspiring local actions on church land or with church communities, we have shared details to encourage greater national action.
We are in a climate and nature emergency, and much has already been lost. However, it is never too late to act in accordance with God’s first instruction to humanity – to ’till and keep’ the earth. Together we can take and inspire greater action to protect God’s precious creation and our shared home.
Signed:
[Add your name to the list of signatories by filling in the form]
