I’m fighting to protect the puffins because ending poverty and saving the planet is the same cause

On the hottest night of last week I had to get up early and get on a train, and then another train, followed by a bus. My destination was Ilfracombe on the Devon coast. I was looking forward to seeing the large sculpture of a visibly pregnant warrior by Damien Hirst that stands by the harbour. This kind of public art interests me, and the Hirst piece was not a disappointment. Back in the early days of Big Issue, Hirst did probably the best guest edit I have ever seen. He got his mates, like David Bowie and Jarvis Cocker, contributing, and lifted us much higher in the public consciousness. 

But my principal target of visiting Devon was to get an early-morning boat to Lundy Island, an hour and a half out into the Bristol Channel. Five kilometres by one in size, it is a vast seabird sanctuary that needs help in staying that way for dozens of species of birds, with the puffin being one of its most famous visitors. 

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The protection needs to be upped for birds, as encroachment planned by the Crown Estate of a watery wind farm, and other attacks on its isolation, will upset its delicate natural balance. One of the UK’s major bird sanctuaries, it needs government to boost its protected status. 

Along with other parliamentarians invited by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I made the trip with the hope of being environmentally useful. Interestingly, when in my early manhood I was a 24/7 hardworking, self-employed printer, I was an RSPB member and a committed tweeter – or whatever they call a bird fancier. 

But then again, I was also a supporter of the Woodland Trust and The Victorian Society, trying to save, among other places, St Pancras station from ruin by neglect; a device often used by powerful bodies so they could pull down and replace with concrete modernity. British Rail was the powerful body. Whereas with the Woodland Trust I was endeavouring to publish a lavishly illustrated book of tree poems. Alas it came to nothing and I think the idea was taken up by others. 

Read more:

• Jim Moir, Nancy Sorrell, Chris Packham and the fine art of birdwatching
• Top 5 books about birds, chosen by Jasmine Donahaye
• ‘Poverty destroys us’: Big Issue founder John Bird urges Labour to set targets to end child poverty

You could say that in this period of my life, in the 1970s and ’80s, I was trying to be environmentally sound. Getting away from the chemical impurities of my print shop into nature, and trying to be useful thereof, was what kept me going; while at the same time subscribing to a very rare form of Marxist, Engelsist, Leninist, Trotskyist politics. 

So while printing business cards and stationery for mini cab companies, concert programmes for the Albert Hall and leaflets for roofers and scaffolders, I was trying to do my bit to tear down capitalism and save woods and birds from extinction. And keep the precious Victorian buildings of my childhood – a very Victorian time for me –
still standing. 

So when the positive-sounding RSPB rallied parliamentarians to try to save Lundy from becoming a barren isle bereft of its enormous colonies of seabirds, I jumped at the chance.

While visiting Bristol recently I spoke with a Green Party councillor about what I think is a glaring hole in environmental politics: that it is a class-divided issue. How do you get working people drawn into the protection of our planet? I had once suggested at the Welsh Green Party AGM that they begin getting behind litter picking as a way of bringing a wider section of people into the Greens’ cause. Cleaning up people’s everyday environment, so to speak.

It didn’t strike any chords at the time, though the councillor told me that when they won the Gorton and Denton by-election recently they had loads of litter pickers out. What a brilliant piece of everyday wellbeing! And I am pleased to remind you that our partners at the Wombles of Wimbledon Common have hundreds of litter picking groups out each weekend, all over the country. 

Thinking of the environment as part of the fight for social justice, I was reminded of a leading campaigner saying that tackling poverty is one of the big driving forces in the fight to save the planet. He had come to see me in parliament, and I was not looking forward to meeting another environmental purist who saw green issues purely in green terms. Whereas I see green issues and the fight to eradicate poverty as one and the same thing. But to my surprise, he put poverty right into the middle of his argument. 

I remembered from my own childhood slum days how destroyed was the environment around us. How bereft of green and trees and desolate were the black tumbled down streets in which we lived. An unnatural nightmare. Poverty surrounding us and occupying our lives, with nature just some budding weeds and nothing more. 

Birds, trees, grasses and sparkling rivers are all a part of our fight to make our planet a happier place. Let’s hope the RSPB will succeed in its efforts to get parliament to take seriously that little island’s sanctity as a sanctuary for seabirds. I shall do my bit.

John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. Read more of his words from our archive.

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