Blue Plaques for Nature
What are Blue Plaques?
The iconic English Heritage blue plaques commemorate a notable person who once lived in a particular place. This action mimics these historical plaques to honour nature... one species at a time.
Plaques can be edited and tailored to:
- Outreach and grow your local group by substituting the text with your information and adding a QR code, logo or image
- Promote your events.
- Raise awareness about species lost or under threat and your local waterway.
Find the Information page on how to create your own plaques [please read first] and the templates HERE.
Examples of the Plaques
These are how your plaques could look! If you want to find information on threatened species to add to your plaque, jump to the bottom of this page here.
When the Blue Plaques should go up
This action can carried out at any time however they can be part of a specfic campaign, for example the World Water Wedding or the Week of Water Action.
Create your blue plaque
Templates can be printed on a standard domestic A4 printer or sent to a professional printer in A3 or A4 formats. You can glue the plaque onto cardboard to strengthen it, or laminate it to make it waterproof.
Editable templates
To make your own, there are editable templates and written instructions on how to use them in this shared Blue Plaque folder. Contact us at dirtywatercampaign@gmail.com if you get stuck.
Buy a blue plaque
You can also order a commercially made Blue Plaque from these sites:
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High-performance film on composite metal £39.99 at time of writing.
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Plastic £14.99 at time of writing.
How to place a Blue Plaque
How permanent you wish to make the fixing is up to you. You need to balance the permanency against any possible damage you may cause and whether you have permission to place a Blue Plaque. Easy to remove, no-damage options, which are much less long-lasting, would include using blue-tac, double-sided sticky tape, string or wire twists around railings.
Where to place a Blue Plaque
Almost anywhere! The power of the Blue Plaques for Nature rests on them staying in place to get passers-by talking and thinking and on their wider impact via an image on social media. So think carefully about where you choose.
You could place a Blue Plaque for Nature on a fence post by your local playground, or by the stile on a favourite woodland walk. Perhaps a café, corner shop, community centre or church hall in your neighbourhood would like to put one in their window. And lastly, of course – how about your own house? Have you always secretly wished you lived in a blue plaque house? This is your chance!
Remember - always take a photo of whichever location you choose and upload it to social media with the hashtags #extinctionrebellion and #dirtywater wherever possible. Then like and repost others' posts to amplify!
Amplify your action
Photos
You can also share your photos direct to the XR Media Library ‘Picture Desk’ or via XRUK Live Action Content Telegram channel. Instructions on how to share your photos are found here. Then your images can be shared and used to amplfy your actions and encourage others to take action.
Further information and reading
More than 100,000 known wildlife species depend on the freshwater ecosystem. And that's not counting the seas/oceans!
- Red list of threatened species in Great Britian
- UK Biodiversity Action Plan
- List of United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan species