Hands Off Nature!
To the European Commission, especially President Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner Jessika Roswall.
Petition
We call on you to protect Europe’s environmental laws and ensure that efforts to boost competitiveness do not come at the expense of people, nature and our future.
Do not weaken our environmental protections. In particular:
- Keep robust environmental assessment and permitting requirements, so projects cannot bypass proper scrutiny of their impacts.
- Protect the Birds Directive and Habitats Directive, and ensure the Natura 2000 network remains properly protected.
- Protect the Water Framework Directive and the standards safeguarding Europe’s rivers, lakes, groundwater and coastal waters.
- Ensure that environmental rules are not weakened or bypassed to make mining, infrastructure or other industrial activities easier.
Europe does not need fewer environmental safeguards. It needs stronger action to protect nature, water and the communities we all depend on.
Why is this important?
The climate crisis is no longer something I read about. I am living it.
I live in northern Catalonia, just a handful of metres from the Mediterranean, surrounded by the forests and mountains that watched me grow up.
In less than six months, I have seen them burn to the ground and be devastated by floods.
My summer has been black - full of ash, fear and pain. And right now, I’m writing this from a friend’s house in Barcelona, waiting for any way to get back home while what is being called a hurricane hits us. [1] Friends and family have been stuck in their cars for hours, terrified the water could drag them into the sea or locked inside their houses, seeing how the water entered their homes and destroyed what is most cherished to them.
This is what the climate crisis looks like. And it is directly linked to the environmental protections that keep our forests, rivers, coastlines and our own lives safe.
The same ones that our EU leaders are unapologetically trying to weaken for the sake of big corporations. They are proposing changes to Europe's most important nature and water laws that would make it easier for mining and other industries to encroach on protected areas, species and habitats. Decades of hard-won protections are put at risk for corporate profit. [2]
Join the 917,000 people who have already signed the Hands Off Nature petition, demanding that the Commission not weaken our hard-won environmental rules. [4] We have until 20 October to reach 1 million. On 23 October, we’ll take those signatures directly to the Commissioner of Environment, Jessika Roswall, in Brussels. We will make ourselves heard.
Sign now and help us reach 1 million voices to protect our nature. #HandsOffNature!
References:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cw8rzdkmj5n1o ; https://en.ara.cat/society/catalonia-alert-for-great-storm-of-rain-and-wind_1_5868851.html
- https://corporateeurope.org/en/2026/05/permission-pollute
- https://handsoffnature.eu/
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