Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

What are we doing inside our organisation?

Internally, Campaign for National Parks is on our own EDI journey, a process of learning and (un)learning, listening with empathy and challenging ourselves. We know social justice and EDI Diversity, equity and inclusion is a vital part of how we work and we know we can and must always do more to embed this into everything we do. We are courageous in our ambition, and intentional in progressing this agenda in our small charity. We have a way to go, and work is underway to: 

• We are taking part in the Small eNGO Ethnic Diversity Support (SEEDs) programme run by Wildlife & Countryside Link and facilitated by Full Colour. Through this we will create a meaningful vision, changes to behaviour and culture and put in place current policies and procedures.

• Establishment of an EDI working group made up of staff members and Trustees who drive this work forward. 

• Adopting inclusive recruitment practices, including utilising a “Blind” recruitment process to ensure candidates are reviewed on how well they fit the job description, and ensuring we reduce barriers to entry (e.g. by not requiring years of experience or academic qualifications for any of our roles).  

• Learning with others, for example, we welcomed our first ‘entry level’ Campaigns Assistant position under Groundworks “New to Nature” trainee scheme which enabled us to learn how to better support those early in the careers, 

• Adopting a new flexible and hybrid working policy for all our staff, which supports staff who need workplace adjustments. 

• We have signed up and committed to achieving the goals set out in Wildlife & Countryside Link’s Routemap which will allow us to significantly contribute to: 

• • Reducing barriers for people of colour joining, progressing and thriving in the sector.

• • Cultivating a genuinely inclusive culture in each organisation and across the sector.

• • Increasing ethnic diversity within the sector.

• We have appointed Dr Geeta Ludhra to the steering group of our new Heritage Lottery Fund New Perspectives project to advise us and ensure equity, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of all our project activities over the next two years.  

• We submit our organisational data to the RACE (Racial Action for the Climate Emergency) report annually – a campaign to collect and analyse data on racial diversity and inclusion in UK charities and funders working on environmental and conservation issues.

What are we doing to secure inclusive National Parks?

Campaign for National Parks exists to influence others. We work across the sector as well as with decision makers to drive change and influence policy. We also run our own projects which embed social justice and champion diversity and inclusion in National Parks.

We know from our previous work, projects and evidence that people of colour are historically, and currently, marginalised within National Parks.

We have a long history of championing inclusive access in National Parks. Our MOSAIC programme ran for over 15 years, and, through a community champions model, supported thousands of people of colour and young people from low income backgrounds to have their first experiences in National Parks. The MOSAIC legacy includes new organisations, Peak District Mosaic and Mosaic Outdoors, who continue this work. From working with these communities, we know that our focus now needs to shift to securing places at the table in decision making. Our New Perspectives project (working with young people) has started this. One of our key advocacy priorities is to secure Government change in legislation and policy to reform of National Park Authority governance, so that Boards are diverse, smaller and have expertise and lived experience. We believe these reforms are absolutely fundamental to securing wilder, inclusive National Parks, and are working with, and learning from, a wide range of partners and people to develop proposals.