Nature Needs Us: How to Be a Guardian of the Natural World

Our guest speaker: Paul Powlesland

In August 2024, environmentalist and barrister, Paul Powlesland made history, by becoming the first member of a UK jury to swear an oath on a river: his beloved River Roding, where he both lives and spends time restoring. A co-founder of the River Roding Trust, Paul has also worked with locals to plant hundreds of trees, remove over a thousand bags of rubbish and hoist precisely 75 shopping trolleys from the Roding’s clay-thick riverbed.

We were thrilled to welcome Paul to Sunday Assembly today to share his journey as well some of his wisdom on the things that we can all do to be better stewards to the natural world. Paul is also co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, an advocacy group calling for the UK to grant rivers a legal right of protection.

Guest poet: Esme May Finch

We were also excited to have some spoken word from Esme Fay Finch, a poet, children’s author and forest school teacher, whose project Ways of the Wild inspires and educates children about environmental matters through storytelling, art workshops and dance.