Highgate and Muswell Hill Red Rebels join Chris Packham protest

Around 400 members of the Red Rebel Brigade, including activists from Highgate and Muswell Hill, wore red robes and white face paint as they marched through the streets of Bath, on Saturday (April 20).

They accompanied 'mourners' dressed in black, including broadcaster and environmentalist Chris Packham, around the willow funeral bier of a mother earth figure, created by artist Anna Gillespie.

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The protest aimed to highlight the crisis facing UK wildlife ahead of Earth Day on Monday (April 22).

Around 400 Red Rebels from across the UK gathered in Bath to protest the 'mass extinction of wildlife' in a funeral procession (Image: Jane Leggett)

Organisers say 43% of UK bird species are in decline, 97% of wildflower meadows have disappeared since the Second World War, and the world is entering its “sixth mass extinction event”.

Red Rebel Jane Leggett, who lives in Highgate, said: "It was an extraordinary event that, as I experienced it close up, was received positively by Saturday shoppers in Bath. 

"It was perfectly choreographed to engage attention and provoke thought, via explanatory leaflets and speeches, and also publicising the Nature March in London on June 22."

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Organiser Rob Delius said: “The intention is to send a powerful SOS message for nature by creating a visual spectacle, that will in equal measures shock and inspire onlookers.

“The UK has sleepwalked into this nature crisis and the fact that we are now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world simply isn’t being talked about enough."

Additional reporting by PA