CLAIMS that the British countryside is racist and colonial have been blasted as nonsense.
The allegation that the great outdoors is a white space where ethnic minorities do not feel welcome was levelled in a report to MPs.
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It came from Wildlife and Countryside Link, which represents 80 organisations including the National Trust, in response to a call for evidence of links between racism and climate change.
But Tim Bonner, boss of the Countryside Alliance, hit back, saying: “It’s ridiculous to say people in the countryside are racist and this is just attention-seeking nonsense.
“Rural people are happy to go out of their way to make people from rural minorities who don’t have experience of the countryside welcome.”
The WCL report was sent to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Race and Community, chaired by Labour MP Clive Lewis.
It said: “Racist colonial legacies continue to frame nature in the UK as a ‘white space’ and people of colour as ‘out of place’.”
Similar claims have been made by the University of Leicester and in a 2020 episode of BBC’s Countryfile.
