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.
These plaques can be used in various ways to:
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Promote the Restore Nature Now march (RNN) on Saturday 22nd June in London.
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Print out one with the RNN logo to carry with you like a placard on the RNN march.
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Raise awareness about species lost or under threat.
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Subtitute your own information and tailor the plaques.
Example plaques
When the Blue Plaques should go up
Get your Blue Plaque ready as soon as you can in the lead up to the Sat 22nd June march. But also this action can also be continued after the Restore Nature Now march to keep raising awareness and as publicity for your local events. Should you go for guerrilla posting under cover of darkness, or with a song and dance ceremony? Again this is up to you.
Create your blue plaque
Templates can be printed on a standard domestic A4 printer. You can glue the plaque onto cardboard to strengthen it, or laminate it to make it waterproof. You can either:
Ready-made templates
Download and print a ready-made plaque from a suite of templates. Here are the two folders on the Dirty Water Google Drive:
- XR groups - the QR code points to the XRUK website - Restore Nature Now page
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Non-XR groups - the QR code points to the Restore Nature Now
Editable templates
Here is a step-by-step 'How to' video and in the folders above you can find editable templates to copy and edit yourself and written instructions are how to copy and edit the templates.
Buy a blue plaque
Or you can order a commercially made Personalised Heritage Blue Plaque for £14.99
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 of course therefore 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 wherever possible, upload it to social media. Then like and repost others' posts to amplify!
Amplify your action
Photos
You can also upload photos to Dirty Water's Google Drive. We can all share them with others and use them for other actions. Upload photos here for XR groups or here for Non-XR groups.
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