Nature for everyone: Finding passion in the world around us
Today, 3 March is World Wildlife Day so we asked Dr Mya-Rose Craig to tell her story of why nature and wildlife is so important.
I have been going out into nature all my life, saving the planet and everything on it is really important to me. When I was 13 years old, I started running nature camps for inner city young people. I then founded my charity, called Black2Nature. Our aim is to provide inner-city Bristol children from visibly minority ethnic (VME) communities the opportunity to engage with nature.
Black2Nature runs overnight camps for primary age children and weekend camps for secondary school children. Since Covid-19 we have had to change tactics and have recently been organising family days out for VME communities which have worked really well. We are also organising tree planting days just outside of Bristol. All these activities are extremely beneficial and positive for mental health. This is really important during this pandemic.
Last October, I spoke at the Youth Against Climate Conference in London. Like some of the others, I applied for a bursary from Zurich and was chosen to receive the £2500 bursary for Black2Nature. I was chosen by Zurich for my future plans to expand Black2Nature and also to run more nature camps for inner-city London teenagers. This bursary will make a huge amount of difference to Black2Nature, as it will be the first time that we have brought young people from outside of the greater Bristol area. Also, I was able to prepare a 3-year business plan showing how we could begin to run nature camps within a 3-hour drive of Bristol, such as in London, Birmingham, Cardiff and Leicester. We have already found an organisation in London to partner with, who run camps for children and young people of all ethnicities who we can work with to find VME teenagers interested in running nature camps for VME teenagers.
As part of being awarded the bursary I am also receiving 1:1 mentoring from Zurich. I have found it extremely beneficial and rewarding. We have talked about what I envisage the future of Black2Nature to be, planning and making future plans.
I am also a climate activist, campaigning on the issue of global climate justice and was extremely lucky to have been chosen for an expedition to the Arctic. I stood at the edge of the Arctic Circle, on an ice floe raising a placard staging the most northerly climate strike. It was incredibly moving to have the melted ice gushing just a little way beneath me.
I also have been running a campaign and conferences tackling the lack of ethnic diversity within the nature sector from a young age. Last year, I became the youngest British person to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Science, this was for my campaigning and desire for change.
To encourage the next generation to want to make positive change for climate, we must get them to care about the environment. Engaging with nature creates a bond between the teenagers who attend, and nature. We are then able to build on this, by talking about the environment and how to tackle climate change.
Our long-term plan is to eventually run our camps throughout the whole of England. I believe it is extremely important to reach as many of our young people as possible, to give them the opportunity, as we have with Bristol VME children and teenagers, to engage and become as passionate as myself, about nature and world around us.
About Mya-Rose Craig
18-year-old Mya-Rose Craig is a prominent British Bangladeshi birder, conservationist & environmentalist. She is committed to conservation such as stopping biodiversity loss and saving our planet through halting climate change, whilst respecting indigenous peoples, and highlighting Global Climate Justice as it intersects with Climate Change Action. She focusses her attention on change from governmental and huge global corporations.
She writes a blog, Birdgirl, gives talks having spoken on a shared stage with Greta Thunberg, writes articles, also appearing on TV and radio. For her work as Founder and President of Black2Nature, which she set up age 13, she is the youngest British person to be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science age 17 for her work fighting for equal access to nature and for ethnic diversity in the environmental sector. In September 2020 she visited the Arctic with Greenpeace, highlighting the second lowest sea ice minimum and doing the most northerly youth strike ever.
Follow Mya-Rose on www.birdgirluk.com, Twitter @BirdgirlUK and Instagram @birdgirluk
