Since I was six days old my parents have taken me bird watching. I have grown up in contact with nature.
What has the experience of bird watching given you?
Everything, including some stability in my childhood. My mother has had many mental health problems, she is bipolar, 25 years passed from her first hospitalization to her diagnosis.
How hard.
Yes, months in bed, inadequate medication, hospitalizations. Bird watching has helped us keep our feet on the ground and our eyes on the sky, the birds have been a complete lifesaver.
Tell me.
For my mother to recover after her manic-depressive episodes, my father organized trips to see birds, that kept us together, I don't know where we would be without that contact with nature.
How has your mother's bipolar disorder affected you?
I grew up with it, I was used to it, but there was a moment of shock when my mother tried to commit suicide and had to be forcibly hospitalized. I was 9 years old, at that time we all grew apart.
Sad.
The responsibility of admitting his wife was enormous for my father. Many nights he would fall asleep crying, but he never gave up. As soon as my mother left the hospital we went on a trip to see birds.
Where did they go?
We spent half a year in South America watching birds, amazing creatures. They helped me forget that I had ever been sad or that Dad had felt overwhelmed.
In those forests he decided his future.
She was a girl who was passionate about nature and wanted to share that with the rest of the world.
She created her blog Birdgirl when she was 11 years old.
Talking about birds wasn't cool at school, and writing about them on my blog allowed me to share my passion.
Triumph?
I have always had problems, other adult birders put me down and questioned me. If I had been a child, they would have praised me, saying that I reminded them of them as children, but I was a rare case.
How absurd, instead of fascinating.
When I made the jump to other networks like Twitter, at the age of 14, I received a barrage of verbal abuse, and when I got into climate activism I was attacked for being Muslim and of Bangladeshi origin. I've talked a lot about climate change and racism.
What do they have to do with it?
The people who cause climate change in both the UK and the US are not those who suffer the most from its effects, it is people who live in developing countries or deprived areas.
Did you create your NGO Black2Nature for them at the age of 14?
Yes, it made me sad that there were children who couldn't have the experience of being out in nature birding, and those children are often the most disadvantaged in the UK.
Is the field classist?
In the UK the countryside is usually reserved for upper middle class people, so I decided to take other children to have that experience. If they don't know nature, how are they going to protect it? Today I organize camps for them and various aid.
You grew up very quickly.
It's true, I have lived life at a very fast pace. I have visited every continent on Earth in search of birds, but when I am among them they give me that much-needed peace and tranquility. Since my adult self I realize many things.
Tell me.
Black2Nature has a lot to do with my experience, with my mother's problems. I know from my own experience that nature, and bird watching in particular, can provide a cure in times of crisis, significantly improving our ability to cope with them.
He has spoken before world leaders.
I found it very irritating when I was at the United Nations climate conferences to see that they had no commitment to address climate change while acknowledging that many people would die. They are short-termists.
How to get humanity to participate in the necessary change of mentality?
Curiously, people normalize climate catastrophes; There is quite a bit of flooding in Bristol, but they have gotten used to it.
But you are not discouraged.
Not me, but according to a survey, in the United Kingdom 50% of people my age think that climate change is irreversible and they no longer put energy into fighting it, which is why we need, for our mental health and that of the planet, that people know and love nature.
