Synopsis:

Nature Needs You tells the compelling story of how Hannah, without campaigning experience, funding or contacts, set out to save swifts from extinction in the UK. Her mission is to change the law and make ‘swift bricks’ mandatory so that the birds who nest in our walls will have a future in Britain. Nature Needs You delves into the highs and lows of trying to win hearts and minds, grab the news agenda with her naked Feather Speech, win Caroline Lucas and Lord Zac Goldsmith’s support, navigate meetings with Secretaries of State and debates in the Houses of Parliament, survive the trolling and midnight self-doubt and raise a petition with the requisite 100,000 signatures for a Parliamentary debate. At stake, with a decline in numbers of over 60% since 1995, are the birds who have become our symbol of summer, the swifts screaming in the skies above us.

Steeped in love for the wild, by a talented writer, Nature Needs You is a clarion call to save the nature on our doorsteps and to prove that passion can be a superpower in bringing change to nature-depleted Britain. Raw, funny, self-deprecating and unstoppable in turn, this is nature writing with the pace of a thriller. Hannah is now knocking at the door of the new Labour Secretary of State for Housing, in the hope that, where Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove failed, Angela Rayner and Matthew Pennycook will save our swifts.

Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Elliot & Thompson
Pub Date: 1 May 2025

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I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher.

Review:

Swifts are summer visitors to the UK. Screaming through the skies like rockets, these birds travel all the way from Africa each year to nest and raise their chicks. Sadly, swifts are on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern, which is the highest level, with their UK population declining 66% between 1995 and 2022.

To say Hannah Bourne-Taylor loves swifts is an understatement. This book is centred around The Feather Speech, her campaign to make swift bricks mandatory in new build houses and renovations. Swifts rely on cavities in our walls to nest, and these spots are rapidly disappearing. You would think that it’s a fairly simple solution, no? Apparently, and frustratingly, it’s too much for the UK government to decide to commit to, and Hannah documents her struggles to be heard throughout this campaign journey.

The writing was fantastic, capturing emotions both high and low as we follow Hannah through the rigours of a parliamentary campaign. I cheered when she found allies to her cause and jumped with her through numerous political hoops just to be heard. I became outraged alongside Hannah when, after doing everything asked of her, she was still shot down and ignored. I celebrated when she described the swifts arrivals with such joy that it was palpable.

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about nature. Nature truly does need us. Nature doesn’t have its own voice; it needs us to shout for it, to campaign for its rights and to love it. You will learn what it takes to challenge the norm, and realise that it needs all of us to come together.

Hannah is still pushing for swift bricks to be a part of legislation, so I encourage you to go to her webpage for information on how you can help this cause.

Thank you so much Elliott & Thompson for sending me a copy of this brilliant book.