Voting in the National Trust Board Elections is still essential for our future.

AGMs: can’t live with them, very easy to ignore them. Yet, as I said a couple of year’s ago on this topic, the National Trust is a major landowner in the UK, perhaps the only one with any kind of accountability, so their role in resolving the climate and ecological emergency is significant. Agriculture is a main contributor to the crisis and that means the Trust is uniquely placed to pioneer good practice and showcase what a sustainable future looks like. As with all democracies, the role of the individual stakeholder can feel pathetically weak. Don’t be fooled. Your vote – and any input you make between voting – is crucial.

Voting is open now and closes before midnight on Friday.

Too much choice

A staggering forty six people sent in their blurbs this time, a bewildering parade of abilities and selling points. Ploughing through all that took me a whole evening when I could have been enjoying music or a book. I hope the work I put in is helpful. The intention is to save you a lot of trouble, and to get a board that treats the climate emergency with the urgency it deserves.

To set this in context, we have known about the climate and ecological emergency since 1988. So far we have done almost nothing about it. I say “we”, but in fact the majority of humans, even in wealthy neoliberal democracies, aren’t directly responsible. Our fate has been in the hands of a wealthy and powerful minority. Some of their representatives have thrown their hats in the National Trust ring. I daresay some of them already occupy seats on the board.  

A more hopeful outlook

However, these elections provide a lot more hope for the future than the last time I did this. Thirteen candidates (list below) specifically mention the environment, showing an awareness that there is urgent work to be done right now to deal with an emergency that is actually upon us and has been for some time. Some of these mention it rather weakly, but it is there. Only one put it right at the top as the first thing she mentions, so there is still some way to go.

So who, in this great crowd of wannabes, shows any awareness at all?

The choice seems to be from the following:

Huseyin Ali-Diakides

Alan Plumb

Lisa Manning

Geoff Nickolds

Emma Mee

Eric Hepburn

Philip Monk

Sheila Ely

Elizabeth Whitehouse

Alan Yates

Christopher Stewart

Sarah Lewis

Martin Pugh

The following candidates seem supportive but I would describe their statements as weak: Nicola Would, Martin Bloom, Sarah Green, David Pearson and Johanna Bobbio. Watch out too for livestock farmer Guy Trehane, who seems to think that sustainable practice needs to be weighed against rural enterprise, as if balance is what we need. As if there has ever been a balance struck between economic models that entirely discount the natural world and the needs of that world to continue.

Read the label

Once again, there’s a very clear “Don’t Buy” label. Neither Gabor Balint nor Bob Piggott seem at all ashamed of their work for HSBC, one of a few banks have funded the climate crisis long after we have all known about it. Graham Frost seems oblivious of the fact that a massive personal Carbon footprint isn’t really a selling point these days. I am inclined to give Stephen Green a wide berth too, a fine example of a tempting distraction from things that’s really matter, especially for those members who like to pretend that there aren’t more pressing matters to attend to (perhaps he is remembering the success of Nigel Farage). Those ecological deserts known as golf courses also stand as a good reason to cross out Robert Williams from our considerations.

As with every group of people we therefore see those who are clearly awake to the most significant issue of our times (and isn’t it great that there so many of them now?); and those who are either in denial or may be in actual opposition; but there is also that sea of individuals – twenty six of them, and therefore still the majority – who simply don’t mention it at all. Most prominent, for me, of these was Benjamin Pook, possibly the only candidate with a really unique outlook. His understanding of playfulness could be a real game-changer for public engagement on the climate. If only he would think of it.

The bottom line

The task this time around is therefore tougher. If we are to see a Trust that speaks clearly on the climate emergency then our votes need to concentrate on the same six individuals. For me that is

Huseyin Ali-Diakides

Elizabeth Whitehouse

Alan Yates

Eric Hepburn

Philip Monk

Emma Mee

I suspect this shortest of short lists does a disservice to a few of those I’ve listed at the outset. But I take comfort from the fact that it is now getting harder to choose now that more and more people are aware of what the real issue is.

The deadline for voting is 11.59pm this Friday (22 October). Click here to vote online. You will need your membership number.