Mya-Rose gives inner city kids taste of country life
Teenage ‘Birdgirl’ runs Black2Nature forest camps
IT was a reminder that nature is truly available to all.
The Daily Express joined children from ethnic communities exploring the countryside in the New Forest.
The 16 teenagers from inner-city Bristol and London were part of a three-night camp run by charismatic birder Mya-Rose Craig, who is campaigning to give people of all backgrounds access to the countryside.
For some of the youngsters of Asian, Afro-Caribbean, African and white English heritage, it was a first trip out of urban habitats to green surroundings.
For many, their sole experience of wildlife has been spotting an urban fox or a squirrel in a park. Some had never seen cows, sheep or horses.
Anthony, a Londoner, said: “It has been an amazing opportunity. I’m thrilled to have seen animals I’ve never seen in real life...like deer and bats.”
While Emmanuel Ego, a 13-year-old British Nigerian, from Southwark, London, said: “I’m very grateful for the staff to take the time to come and volunteer at the camp.”
The youngsters were in the heart of William the Conqueror’s ancient hunting forest, next door to 91-acre Horse Common, which the conservation charity RSPB hopes to buy, helped by Express readers and eco entrepreneur Dale Vince. It wants to restore the plantation of mixed woodland, heath and marsh to bring back species such as nightingales, nightjars and Dartford warblers.
The camp, supported by the charity, is also part of Mya-Rose’s Black2Nature campaign – a drive to encourage who she describes as visible minority ethnic youngsters into rural surroundings.
Mya-Rose, 19 – known to her big social media following as Birdgirl – grew up with sister Ayesha, 30, in rural Somerset.
They were raised by programme manager dad Chris and BritishBangladeshi mum Helena, a retired solicitor, who have taken them birdwatching all around the world.
At 17, Mya-Rose became the youngest person to tick off spotting 5,000 bird species – half the world’s total – when she saw a Harpy Eagle in Brazil’s Amazon region.
While last year she also achieved the distinction of being the youngest person to receive an honorary doctorate as Bristol University commemorated her campaigning.
Mya-Rose has shared speaking platforms with TV naturalist Chris Packham and with Swedish ecoactivist Greta Thunberg. She has published her first book,We Have a Dream, and is about to study politics at Cambridge University.
As her campers donned wellies and went moth trapping, pond dipping, nature sketching and to meet the New Forest’s iconic ponies, Mya-Rose said that many people fear that the countryside is “white, elitist and racist”. Since launching Black2Nature aged just 14, she has held several camps and has witnessed racism.
She said: “Some quite young teenagers have had to deal with some quite nasty things. It can be as simple as someone seeing them on the reserve and assuming they’re troublemakers and are going to harm the wildlife.We have had people threaten to call the police on these children on our camps...12 and 13-year-old boys.
“It is the boys in particular who face a lot of this. They’re not doing anything. These kids are just birdwatching and having a nice time.”
But Mya-Rose, whose camps are funded by bodies including the RSPB and insurer Zurich, said there are other hurdles such as poverty.
She said: “There are also tangible barriers such as lack of public transport out into the countryside or how expensive public transport can be.”
Knowledge
She added: “Or even just the fact that people are working and are busy. Getting food on the table is often a priority and for many, getting out into nature isn’t in the front of their minds.
“It is also a cultural issue. If you have parents who never went and did something like this themselves, there’s no reason for you to suddenly go for a walk.”
Mya-Rose also backs the Express drive to help the RSPB buy Horse Common. It is next to its 910-acre Franchises Lodge reserve near Nomansland and would link to the Loosehanger Copse Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and to Langley Wood National Nature Reserve and the New Forest SSSI.
This newspaper is also running a Green Britain Needs You crusade to help people and firms be greener.
Mya-Rose said: “Historically, the way that our nature organisations have looked at preserving nature is by buying a little patch of land and opening it up to people. We need to think a bit bigger than that.
“We need landscape-wide rewilding. Organisations like the RSPB are buying much bigger patches of land to keep it healthy.”
With that, it was time for Birdgirl’s campers to join a BioBlitz where they competed to find as many species as possible using the knowledge they had gained from her.
Mya-Rose added: “We are not trying to create mini–David Attenboroughs here and we’re not expecting them to all go into conservation afterwards. We just want to give children who wouldn’t normally be able to get out in nature the opportunity to do so.”