Lumley’s new cause: saving dolphins from wind farm blasts
SHE famously won a campaign for Gurkhas to settle in the UK. Now Joanna Lumley has a new target: stopping wind farm companies blowing up ordnance on the sea bed and deafening dolphins.
The Absolutely Fabulous star wants companies to stop detonating unexploded wartime bombs they find on the sea bed around Britain’s coast when they are building wind farms, because of the damage it causes to marine life.
Lumley said: “At the moment, they currently use high explosives. It wrecks the seabed, it kills millions of fish and sea life. And also it deafens whales and dolphins who live entirely on their auditory systems. The way they speak, communicate to each other, the way that they find each other, find food, have companions, pods, mate, is entirely based on this. Once you’ve damaged their system, they float, they go out to sea, they die, they starve.”
Lumley’s victory for the Gurkhas in 2009 – Gordon Brown’s Labour government was forced to find homes in Britain for all Gurkhas who served before 1997 after initially refusing – was a politically defining moment.
“We eventually got the backing of the whole country and lots of politicians of every colour and hue. We were triumphant,” she said.
Now she wants the Conservative Government to force wind farm builders to use a system called deflagration, which makes the ordnance safe without a huge blast. The problem appears to be that the Prime Minister is not listening.
Lumley said she has already tried to take her campaign directly to No 10 – but her letters to Boris Johnson and his fiancée Carrie Symonds, an environmental campaigner, have not been answered.
“Sadly I haven’t heard back, it isn’t even acknowledged yet. And I do hope they see it because [Ms Symonds] is tremendous, she’s a great leader in the green world, and changing things and pushing and powering things through.”
A Government spokesman said: “We are working closely with the Marine Management Organisation, nature conservation bodies and marine industries to reduce underwater noise, but must ensure any clearance method used is both safe and effective.”
In an interview on Chopper’s Politics podcast, available on Tuesday, Lumley says Mr Johnson should admit when he gets things wrong: “I like people who listen and have an answer and sometimes they’re allowed to say, ‘I don’t know, I simply don’t know.’
“I think that’s why the Prime Minister was so popular early on. He used to say, ‘I simply have no idea’ or ‘let’s try that’ or ‘I’m so sorry’ or ‘please go ahead’. And I think that there’s something human about that.”
Lumley, 74, has had her first Covid-19 jab, with her second due next month, and is a keen advocate of coronavirus passports for international travel.
But for now, she just wants wind farm firms to stop detonating bombs. “Let’s get this done tomorrow. It’s nothing, it’s the scribble of a pen,” she said.
“Like Elvis Presley, I like quite a lot of action. I’m not combative, I don’t fight people. What I love to do is to say, ‘You can do this differently.’ Because you can. It can be done differently and there will be no harm done. It’ll be a win-win situation.”