03-04 November 2025 | Online GMT
03-04 November 2025 | Online GMT
On 3rd-4th November 2025, over 100 researchers, practitioners, and activists from the RENEW community came together online for our annual Biodiversity Parliament – an event that provides a space to connect and reflect on important biodiversity issues. This year, we set out to explore what environmental justice means in theory and practice, with the aim of inspiring thinking and steps towards positive action.
Together we explored the challenges encountered, the lessons learned, and the opportunities for creating a fairer and greener future. It was an inspiring and thought-provoking event, which reminded all of us why our work matters and the importance of challenging ourselves to innovate and create positive change.
Environmental injustice is a serious barrier to nature renewal. There is growing awareness of this in the UK related to, for example, inequalities in access to quality green and blue spaces, differences in opportunities to engage in outdoor or nature-based occupations or recreational activity, or the uneven impacts of climate change. And there is increasing acceptance that environmental injustice is one face of power inequalities rooted in history and dominant political and economic systems.
You can catch up on selected talks, panel sessions, and poetry readings by watching or listening to the recordings below.
In this event opener, social justice activist Ashanti Kunene (Learning 2 Unlearn) shared a powerful poetic provocation to inspire, challenge, and provide hope for a better future.
This panel session centred the audience around key themes and approaches to environmental justice, particularly those being explored by research themes in RENEW.
Chaired by Alice Moseley (Associate Professor in Public Policy & Administration, University of Exeter)
This panel provided diverse perspectives to spark debate on environmental justice. Provocateurs speak from their own experience and expertise in environmental and social justice, presenting a key challenge or bold idea to get you thinking.
Chaired by Charles Masquelier (Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Exeter)
With Gillian Burke (Biologist, Presenter, Writer) & Dr Bothwell Kabayira (Doctor & Health Innovator)
With Manu Maunganidze (Co-Director of Inclusion & Climate Justice, SOS-UK) & Naftal Zinyemba (EDI Officer, The Wildlife Trusts)
Chaired by Ria Poole (Postdoctoral Impact Fellow in EDI, University of Exeter), our In Conversation sessions allowed a free-flowing deep-dive into some core issues of environmental justice. Involving critical thinkers working at the forefront of justice-based action, these conversations explore politics, power, activism, and changemaking from different perspectives, domains, and lived experiences.
Chair: Charles Masquelier (Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Exeter)
Chair: Catriona McKinnon (Professor of Political Theory, University of Exeter)
Our case study panels spotlight key challenges organisations are facing in the environmental and social justice space and showcase examples of what successful action looks like. Presentations were followed by breakout discussions for delegates to ask questions, share learnings, and reflect on their own work and practice.
Compere: Natasha Ryan (Education Manager, The Poetry Society)
Poems performed by Caleb Parkin (poet and RENEW PhD student) and Sylvie Jane Lewis (Young Poets Network), offering a playful and thought-provoking end to proceedings.
Creative practice is an integral part of RENEW’s approach to tackling the biodiversity crisis. In this event, a series of creative workshops provided different lenses through which to explore environmental justice. You can browse some of the creative outputs produced in these sessions below.
Vanessa Miles from Well Image CIC led a guided reflection activity using photography as a mindful tool to connect with nature. Vanessa’s session encouraged delegates to take a break from the screen, go outside or look out a window, and capture details of the natural world.
You can view the images taken in our online Padlet board – we encourage you to upload your own photos and add your comments and reflections.
Caleb Parkin (poet and RENEW PhD student) led one of three creative ‘visioning’ workshops at the event. Attendees were encouraged to reflect on the parliament sessions, consider their own visions for a just future, and then work together to playfully weave ideas together into an abacedarian (A-Z poem) to create a collaborative manifesto for the future.
Read the abecedarian poem or listen to Caleb perform it in the recordings section above.
Led by Alicia Richins of The Climateverse, our Narratives of Regeneration workshop invited participants to explore how biodiversity, community wellbeing, and justice intersect to shape the world we want to build.
Using a Futures Triangle and storyboards approach, the workshop outputs offer a vivid snapshot of how imagination, storytelling, and strategic thinking can open up new possibilities for nature, communities, and policy.
Our thanks to facilitators Iris & Birch, tech producer Beyongolia, and all our speakers, chairs, workshop leads, poets, and audience members who made the event possible.
Banner image: Illustration by Ria Poole, 2025, all rights reserved
