Nature recovery and climate crisis key focus of this year's South Yorkshire Festival of Debate

Set up in 2015, the festival is focused on bringing people together to share new ideas and lived experience, with a view to help to shape society’s understanding of the world. This year, climate is one of three strands for the festival, and Yazan will talk as part of an event called The Nature Emergency: People and Communities, run in partnership with the Nature Recovery Sheffield movement.

Ian Cracknell is an advocacy officer at Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, which is involved in the movement. He says: “We face a nature emergency just as we do a climate emergency and essentially the issue is that species are declining at massive rates and we are losing many of them.

"We are seeing declines in habitat which in most cases is the fundamental reason [for species loss] and where there’s loss of species, there’s then loss of food for other species because of the food chain. We’re definitely seeing that in Sheffield."

It is linked too, to the changing climate, Ian says, as rising temperatures can impact when and where certain species live and breed. He hopes next week’s talk will highlight the work that individuals and community groups are doing across Sheffield to aid nature’s recovery and in turn inspire others to take action.

A number of stalls will be set up at the event, enabling people to speak to those already involved in local efforts and find out more about how they can contribute. There will also be a series of speakers, including Yazan, who will draw on his work in Syria and Sheffield to talk about delivering the voices of young people from marginalised and vulnerable communities.

Liz Ballard, the CEO at Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, will set the scene around why collective action for nature is needed. She will also introduce the importance of people’s connection with nature. “A lot of people don’t have access to green space and that’s a really big issue,” Ian elaborates. “A lot of people don’t have a garden or green space they can easily get to…To get people interested in and connected to nature, that’s a really important matter.”

Other speakers include Olivier Tsemo, CEO of Sheffield and District African Caribbean Community Association, who will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities around equity of access to nature and empowering people, from an African heritage perspective, and Rachael Smith, the director of the South Yorkshire-based Kids Plant Trees organisation, who will discuss why easy access to nature is so important for young families, women and girls.

Those in attendance will also hear from Lindy Stone, the coordinator of Greener Greenhill and Sheffield Friends of the Earth, who is involved with campaigning on climate and nature issues. Lindy will give an example of how people have come together in her local area of Sheffield and taken practical actions to improve their green spaces for nature and compile a walk route.

Ian says having a climate focus at the festival is “hugely important”. “We are at an edge of a decision where individuals, communities, councils, governments have to take much stronger action for us to carry on surviving and for the world we currently live in. The declines we are seeing are all pointing one way and that will continue. It’s a hugely important strand for the festival, so that people can get access to information and understand what they can do – because all of us can do something, all of us can take action in our lives.”

The Nature Emergency: People and Communities takes place from 7pm until 9.15pm at the Dorothy Fleming Lecture Theatre in Sheffield on Thursday, May 11. For tickets, and more details about other Festival of Debate events, visit festivalofdebate.com