to the ‘destruction of the planet’.
There was a carnival atmosphere to Sunday’s event, which involved a boat being pushed along the coast road from Town to Vale Castle in order to signify rising sea levels and the thousands of animal and plant species which are said by scientists to be at threat of extinction within the next few decades.
An estimated 170 people took part in the march, which had a police escort, and it did cause some traffic hold-ups heading north.
The movement Extinction Rebellion (or XR) organised the event and participants said Guernsey must stop burying its head in the sand on the issue of climate change.
As the reggae music blared out, Sarah Koulloutas from XR said they felt compelled to alert the States to the ecological and climate emergency.
‘We need to get the States to understand that people are rallying around this, and the States action plan that they’ve promised by May 2020, which we still think is not soon enough, must reflect the passion of the people and there must be strong transformative change within that action plan.’
In June this year the States voted not to follow Jersey and the UK in declaring a climate change emergency, although they did agree that the situation needed to be addressed.
In the UK, XR has brought traffic in city centres to a halt and supporters have super-glued themselves to structures, but in Guernsey the protest had a much more relaxed and genteel atmosphere, although Mrs Koulloutas did hint at a possible stepping up of the campaign.
‘That’s not to say that in the future we won’t do something that has a bit more civil disruption, which is what we’ve seen from the UK groups, but at the moment, yes, we have been a bit tamer in our actions.’
Accountant and mum-of-two, Dani Bennett was a first-time marcher, she felt inspired to join to protect the Guernsey lifestyle.
‘Yesterday I was at Grandes Rocques beach with the children and I was thinking about whether or not to come, and there’s always a bit of a worry about sticking your head above the parapet, especially in Guernsey because it is a small community, and then we were swimming around in the lovely water and I realised that this is what I’m fighting for because it’s so beautiful and the children were having so much fun, and that’s worth standing up for.’
Adam Guille, who was cycling along the route with his six-year-old daughter Maisie, said he was fed up with empty gestures.
‘Two hundred species are being wiped out every day, one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction in the next few decades, the Amazon is on fire, the polar ice caps are melting, forests are disappearing, where have the insects gone? I’m doing this for her [pointing at his daughter] because otherwise there’s no future.’
‘People say Guernsey is a tiny island, and there’s nothing we can do, but we could set an example to the world.’
Extinction Rebellion has been criticised in some quarters for being a fashionable fad, but marcher Tara De Jersey, who was dressed in florescent primary colours, disagreed with that sentiment.
‘Well I’m not fashionable as I think you can see, and you might think it’s fad, but it’s not a fad to want to support the Earth – the Earth supports how I live and where I live and everything around me.’
‘It’s a great turnout and this is a really strong group that wants to see action and changes.’
George Bennett, 11, managed to sum up the whole mood of the event.
‘It’s a circle, so everything affects us in a way because everything is connected, so when it gets too hot for animals it will eventually affect us, but we can do something [about it].’
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