It is about recognising and celebrating diversity and ensuring we support all sexualities and gender identities who are part of the Wildlife Trust network.
Surrey Wildlife Trust is extremely proud of all its employees whose expertise, passion and knowledge allow us to protect and connect nature in Surrey. Here we celebrate four colleagues from four different teams at Surrey Wildlife Trust and what Pride means to them:
I started working for SWT in November, mainly on the Hedgerow Heritage Project with other days spent on the Reserves Management team. I enjoy being out on sites and seeing the great effects our volunteer groups have on the landscape. When I’m not at work I’m spending time with my partner and our pet goats, who are the best therapy animals!
For me, Pride is the freedom to be myself. It’s celebrating the diverse spectrum of people represented in the LGBTQIA+ community who are now freer to themselves. It’s recognising the hardship and oppression of people throughout history who fought for our existence to be legal, to work towards equality, and to fight discrimination. As a queer, gender non-conforming person, feeling accepted and respected is so important in a world which can often feel hostile. Working out in nature and seeing its uniqueness helps to remind me that being different is good. The diversity that is celebrated and sought after in nature should also be recognised as a fundamental part of human society. For me, Pride Month is an opportunity to champion this diversity, bringing it into the mainstream and educating people on the importance of acceptance and inclusion.
I grew up loving Pokémon and dinosaurs, and this led to my love of the natural world. I've been with the Trust for nearly six years, starting with the Education team and more recently moving over into Research & Monitoring. I love the variety of my work - some days I'm out in the field looking for rare beetles and others I'm developing apps to support our projects team and citizen scientists. Nature is weird and wonderful and having a career in this sector is a never-ending learning journey.
For me, Pride is a time to highlight our differences and celebrate them. I appreciate that probably sounds a bit odd, as you hear a lot about looking past differences, but being part of the queer community means you are different, in a fantastic way, but different none the less. Those differences have meant, and continue to mean, that our queer family around the world are not free to be themselves, not free to live their lives or to have the most basic civil liberties. This has changed dramatically, even within my lifetime, but there is still a long way to go - at home as well as abroad. So, for those of us lucky enough to live where we can celebrate our identities, we must. We must celebrate, we must be proud, we must educate but we must not forget and we must not stop fighting.
I have always loved wildlife since a very young age. It has always fascinated me, and I am interested across the whole wildlife spectrum. I am currently undertaking an internship with the Surrey Wildlife trust, which has given me a lot of pride and joy as well as confidence, I learn something new every day. I am also involved in other projects one with the British trust for ornithology, which is a ringing scheme, monitoring summer migratory birds. In my spare time I enjoy learning about all of nature’s wonderful creatures and educating my long-term partner about all the different birds and mammals we see when we travel to different sites.
Pride for me, is a wonderful way to celebrate who we are, helping us to feel comfortable and safe in what can be a troubling world. I think it is important to know that there are LQBTQ+ people working in these organisations, by spotlighting them. Your sexuality or label should not mean you are not capable of doing a certain job, as it has been in the past. It will also highlight to younger people who perhaps do not yet have the confidence or belief to be who they are yet, to hopefully feel more comfortable and realise they too could one day work for a great organisation like the wildlife trust. It has changed so much in my lifetime and more people are now being who they are and not having to hide it, but there is still so much more to do and spotlighting people like us can potentially help people to know they are not alone, we are here, and we are living our lives and carrying out our dreams and ambitions.
I became a Trustee of SWT in November 2021. In my day job I’m Head of Sustainability at Openreach - and I’ve always volunteered in some capacity. Pre pandemic I spent four years as Director of Volunteer Engagement at Pride in London, responsible for recruitment, training, deployment and wellbeing of 2000 volunteers for the biggest Pride event in the UK.
Two things happened: first, my wife and I had a baby son in late 2019, and then we went into lockdown three months later. I spent my maternity leave hiking with my baby boy in a sling - and realised I wanted to devote more time to nature, to wildlife. I wanted to spend my time protecting nature so that our son could grow up in a world where nature thrives. I’d seen the Wild About Inclusion strategy and thought my experience in D&I and movement building, in building corporate partnerships and in volunteer strategy and safeguarding could be put to use.
For me Pride is a focal point to support and include the LGBTQIA+ community, because we cannot afford to be complacent about our rights: this week, reproductive rights in the US have gone back 50 years. There was a shooting in an Oslo gay bar. There is no guarantee of continued forward momentum. At the same time, we need everyone to be active in the climate and biodiversity crises we face - only when this matters to everyone and everyone understands how to contribute will we really succeed. Inclusion is mutually beneficial.
