Black2Nature was invited to get a behind the scenes tour of Glastonbury festival whilst it was being set up.
During the visit, we helped paint some of the collection bins used during the festival.
The weather was great for the tour as the rain held off till we were leaving, so we avoided being soaked!
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
In November 2017, an article that I wrote about my Race Equality in Nature Conference and my Black2Nature project appeared in The Wildlife Trusts Winter Magazine, Natural World. The Magazine is read by all members of the individual Wildlife Trusts, to a huge 880,000 people.
I wrote about my experience as a young minority ethnic naturalist, noticing the lack of other minority ethnic people and how important it was to get more people engaged in nature.
I wrote about Camp Avalon which took place in June 2015 and 2016, what I learnt from that and my Race Equality in Nature Conference in June 2016.
The article contained some of the findings from the conference when we looked at the barriers to Minority Ethnic people getting out into nature, what can be done to overcome the barriers and how to create role models.
Lots of people contacted me to say how important my article was and that in the future people would look back and say that it was when the issue came to many people’s notice.
The week after the Natural World Magazine arrived, my Wildlife Watch Magazine arrived with my article inside about Camp Avalon, inviting young people to come and take part. It was really funny because my friends at The Wildlife Trust head office thought that it was the first time that someone had articles in both magazines at the same time!
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
On 3 June 2016 I organised a conference at Bristol Zoo called Race Equality in Nature which was sponsored by Bristol Zoo Gardens, The Wildlife Trusts, WWT, Swarovski Optik, Opticron, AFON, Bristol Multi-Faith Forum (BMFF), Imayla, CASS and Brian Eversham. I am very grateful to all the sponsors and those who helped, without whom I could not have arranged the conference.
Bill Oddie and Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
Stephen Moss
Panel
The speakers were, including myself opening, Bill Oddie, Kerry McCarthy (Environment Secretary at the time), Stephen Moss (broadcaster), Dr Richard Benwell (WWT), Jini Reddy (naturalist) & Experts in Race Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Monira Ahmed Chowdhury (CASS), Lily Khandker (BMFF), & Rachel De Garang. The speakers had a wide range of expertise to contribute.
The conference considered why there is inequality in access to nature by Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people by first identifying the barriers to BAME people accessing nature and secondly identifying who these barriers can be overcome, with a special additional focus on role models.
85 people attended the conference from a diverse range of backgrounds including many of the nature charities, BBC NHU, Media, Universities, National Trust, Heritage Lottery Fund, BAME people, and those working with BAME communities such as housing, education and mental and physical health. It was the first time that so many people from such varied backgrounds and professions had got together to talk through the issues, with BAME led lively and honest discussions in workshops.
Introduction The conference came from the starting point that there is an inequality of access by BAME people to nature and that this was in addition to the effects of inner-city deprivation, as concluded in the February 2016 Natural England Report. It then considered how and why there are these inequalities by identifying the barriers to BAME people accessing nature, how these barriers can be overcome, with a special additional focus on role models.
Action The biggest challenge following the conference is how to make a change? It was agreed, amongst other things:
To set up a group, which has been set up in LinkedIn, Race Equality in Nature
Ask universities, AFON/NGB, etc to identify BAME people studying nature subjects and members
To set up a Whatsapp group of BAME naturalists, for mentoring & support
To chose a snazzy project name (Black2Nature) and obtain funding
To recruit an employee with expertise in race equality, diversity and inclusion and ideally nature to collaborate with nature charities & media, schools and universities, etc
Where possible, initiatives are BAME led
To promote the project with BAME led articles and workshops
Nature TV needs to meet commissioners quotas (see Linkedin Group “The ‘D’ Word”)
Nature NGO’s to prioritise recruiting BAME people for HR, Marketing & Finance roles
Objectives Seeking equal access to nature for BAME people is a valid and justifiable aim. Due to nature organizations being almost all white, there was an ingrained lack of understanding of BAME communities and at times arrogance about this missing knowledge which acts as a hindrance. For this reason, projects need to be BAME led where possible, which can happen through collaboration.
Many barriers are within the BAME communities with those working within them having a lack of expertise in engaging people with nature. Hence, the need for collaboration with nature NGOs.
Nature charities/media need to engage in the project from the highest levels so that all staff can be trained and bought in. For example, preventing staff from stating unhelpful things, such as that the organisation is colourblind (we all see colour and so the playing field needs to be levelled to compensate for stereotypes).
It is important to involve political policymakers to highlight local/central funding needed
Role Models In terms of role models for BAME people, we agreed that it was important to nurture young BAME naturalists as soon they show interest because support is needed from the earliest opportunity to help them overcome barriers.
BAME mentors and champions are needed, be trained on the issues, to give a tailored scheme. Those from other professions can support with general careers advice, internships/volunteering, isolation, lack of family understanding, racism and prejudice.
Schools/universities need to encourage and educate BAME teenagers and their parents to choose degrees in biological sciences to gain interest in careers in nature and conservation.
The Natural Environment White Paper (2011) sets out the Government’s ambition to strengthen connections between people and nature, and in particular ‘for every child to be able to experience and learn in the natural environment’. The White Paper acknowledges that the “opportunities to benefit from spending time in natural environments are currently not open to everyone”, which can contribute to health and other inequalities.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Select Committee inquiry into the Natural Environment White Paper called for DEFRA to set a target to increase public engagement with nature and for the Department for Health (DoH) and the Department for Education (DoE) to define measurements which demonstrate how greater public engagement with nature delivers gains in public health and education.
So Natural England in partnership with DEFRA, Public Health England, Historic England (previously English Heritage) and King’s College London launched a 2-year pilot to develop a national indicator for children’s access to the natural environment. This led to the February 2016 report, confirming with statistics what was concluded before. The results highlighted “clear social inequalities in how children are accessing natural environments, with both their ethnicity and socio-economic status having a detrimental impact”.
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
