Meet Zoe Bicat and her pack-mule Falco, who are on the return leg of their thousand-mile ‘Walk for Earth’, which has taken them from their home city of Oxford to Loch Lomond in Scotland in support of Stop Ecocide International.

Zoe is aiming to raise £10,000 to support Stop Ecocide International in progressing a change to international law that would recognise mass destruction of the living world – or ‘ecocide’ – as a crime.

Zoe chose Loch Lomond as her destination because it was where Polly Higgins QC, the Barrister who co-founded Stop Ecocide International and dedicated her life’s work to advancing the creation of a new law of ecocide, grew up.

Through her journey, Zoe and Falco have been raising awareness about ecocide law as they meet with individuals, schools, and local groups along their route.

They will be passing Haltwhistle, Carlisle, Gilsland and Warwick Bridge within the next week.

“Just seeing the way people’s faces light up when they meet Falco is evidence for me that we feel deep connection with the more-than-human world, and it makes us happy”, says Zoe.

“‘Walk for Earth’ is all about connection: with nature; with others across an ocean who have been suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis; and with each other. We could harness our astonishing power of collaboration to build systems based on understanding ourselves as part of the living world, able to thrive in balance with it."

Zoe’s walk includes a textile project, ‘Interwoven’ which engages UK-based loom weavers, spinners and natural dyers who care about the living world to make sections of a woven textile piece, using natural and plant-dyed fibres sourced as locally and sustainably as possible, so that each section expresses a relationship with the place where its materials are sourced.

The finished piece will be offered by Stop Ecocide International as a gift to Vanuatu’s Ambassador to Europe, to honour their leadership as the first nation to propose serious consideration of an ecocide law on the international stage in 2019.

For details of how to participate in 'Walk for Earth', and the 'Interwoven' textile project, see www.walkforearth.co.uk.