Giles Goddard, Vicar of St John’s, Waterloo, in central London, writes about the Pilgrimage to Paris, a year on after it set off from London

On a drizzly Friday in November 2015, a group of pilgrims set off from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square to walk to Paris. We walked down Whitehall, across Westminster Bridge and through South London into the countryside of Surrey. We came from across the country, the oldest over 70 and the youngest under 20 years old. We were united in our concern to make sure that the voice of faith was heard at the forthcoming COP 21 climate change talks in Paris.  

Sent on our way by Bishop Nicholas Holtam, the C of E’s lead Bishop on the environment, we were apprehensive but full of hope.  

We slept the first night on the floor of a church hall in Banstead, Surrey.  The news when we woke was sombre - terrorist attacks in Paris had killed over a hundred people. Suddenly we were walking not just as a visual and physical statement about climate change, but in solidarity with all who had been affected by or killed in terrorist attacks across the world.  

There was doubt about whether we would be permitted to cross the Channel. But as we walked on through rain and wind towards the coast, after a couple of days the news came through that we would be able to board the ferry in Newhaven and carry on across the north of France to Paris.

I left the Pilgrimage in Newhaven – parish duties called – so I missed the journey through France. But I was told by those who walked the whole way how moving the pilgrimage was: how they were welcomed warmly into people’s homes, and given huge encouragement in their journey by people who were touched and inspired by the witness of the pilgrims.

And then, in Paris, they met other pilgrims from all over Europe and beyond. Someone who had come from Canada by bicycle (and ship).  Others who had walked with the visionary Yeb Sano, who had inspired pilgrimages around the world. And others who had simply and quietly made the journey because they cared.

A petition, signed by more than 1.8 million people, was presented to the Executive Secretary of the COP 21 talks, Christiana Figueres. She was very clear that the witness of faith groups in the run-up to Paris had made a material difference to the success of the talks. “I want to thank you,” she said, “for every single step.” 

The Paris Climate Agreement was made more possible because faith groups all over the world lifted their voices and said – “This matters. The talks must succeed.”  On 4th November this year, the Agreement came into force. It’s a remarkable achievement. As I write this, more than 100 countries have ratified the deal, including the UK.

But many say that it does not go far enough. The commitment of countries to reducing their carbon emissions may be insufficient. That’s why the next set of talks – COP 22, in Marrakech, due to finish today, is so crucial.  The challenge to all the countries is how to put flesh on the bones of the Paris Agreement.

The voice of faith leaders was there again. A statement signed by over 170 eminent faith leaders was due to be presented to the President during the talks.  

All round the world, people and congregations are saying that they want to help make a better world for them and for their children.

Church of England churchyards cover an area equivalent to a small national park, acting as a huge nature reserve for England. David Shreeve, the Church of England’s national environment adviser, writes about the significance of CofE churchyards for the environment and conservation in advance of Cherishing Churchyards Week

“They may be taken for granted and their benefits often vastly undervalued, but churchyards are wonderful.

There are species growing in churchyards that grow nowhere else.  We say that added together, the 10,000 CofE churchyards make up the area of a small national park, but a national park can be acre upon acre covered in a single species of heath or heather.  Churchyards are much more biodiverse – they add up to a huge national nature reserve.  

There is more than just the biodiversity that makes churchyards special, as the recent Nature of God’s Acre project in Chichester Diocese has shown.  These are unique places which are neither gardens, fields nor parks - they are owned by the Church, but belong to the community. They are places where generations past have found their rest and where plants and animals increasingly pushed out from their surroundings through development and changes in agricultural practice have also found a haven.

The project has just published an excellent book featuring almost 40 churchyards to help better understand the relationship with nature in churchyards today.  Many people reported having a spiritual feeling, being thoughtful and contemplative when they saw such wildlife. As the Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, says: “The churchyards of Sussex are places where we invest some of our most precious possessions.”

There are almost 560 churchyards or green spaces in the Diocese of London many providing the only green lung within the parish. St Lawrence Whitchurch, Little Stanmore and All Saints Isleworth both have six species of bat active in them. The Firecrest Regulus ignicapilla  which vies with the Goldcrest for the title of the UK's smallest bird has also been positively identified from its calls in All Saints (there are only up to about nine breeding pairs known in London) whilst the very rare Mile End jumping spider Macaroeris nidicolens had its only 5th UK sighting in St Mary’s, Leyton. The Nuthatch Sitta europaea has been observed in St Dunstan, Stepney, and a recent survey of the diocese found 28 species of lichen never before recorded.

St Peter’s, Cradley in the Worcester Diocese, has a mammoth task underway involving their eight acres of churchyard.  For years brambles had hidden local history.  With them cleared, First World War graves and a Boer War memorial have been discovered and room found for bee hives, bug hotels and bird boxes.  The Rev Katryn Leclézio says the work on the churchyard has attracted people into the church.    

The Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust is discussing with Ely Diocese and others a possible churchyard and burial ground campaign for Cambridgeshire.

Not every wildlife trust has a churchyard award scheme, but many do. Dorset Wildlife Trust invited the Bishop of Salisbury, the CofE’s lead bishop for the Environment and chair of its Environment Working Group to present the awards at its annual Living Churchyards ceremony last year.

With so many churchyards, the Church is responsible for a huge number of trees.  Two workshops in London and Liverpool later this year are aimed at clergy, churchwardens, tree wardens, tree organisations and other interested parties to spread good practice and plan a programme to bring churches and communities together to ensure our churchyards remain of value for future generations.    

Churchyards like churches need care and maintenance, but they bring huge benefits and deserve all the cherishing we can give them.”

Cherishing Churchyards Week, promoted by the charity Caring for God’s Acre starts on Saturday and lasts until Sunday June 12.

www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk