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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Camp Avalon |
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Camp Avalon |
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| Camp Avalon |
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| Camp Avalon |
Background
I
am a 14 year old birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist and
activist. I have been going out into
nature all my life visiting lots of different types of places like open countryside,
nature reserves, the coast, country parks and urban green spaces. On these visits, I almost never saw Black
Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) people. My
Mum is British Bangladeshi and from seeing my Bangladeshi family’s lack of interest
in nature, I assumed that BAME people didn’t go into the countryside because
they didn’t like it. However, this
didn’t fit with why there are birders in Bangladesh
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Somerset Levels |
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with Laila on Somerset Levels |
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with Laila on Somerset Levels |
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Camp Avalon on Somerset Levels |
Last
year I ran Camp Avalon
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| Camp Avalon |
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| Camp Avalon |
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Camp Avalon |
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| Camp Avalon |
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That’s
when I realised that anyone can engage with nature, they just have to be taken
out into it and shown how to. David
Lindo, a well known British BAME birder, has called this “opening the door to
nature” which makes a lot of sense to me.
After Camp Avalon , I wrote to the four biggest UK
I
am also running Camp
Avalon
Facts
In
2011 “The Natural Environment White Paper” was published which said that the Government
wanted 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 also confirmed that the opportunity to get benefit from
spending time in natural environments (NE) were not open to everyone, which could
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 the
number of people that engaged with NE and for the Department for Health (DoH)
and the Department for Education (DoE) to set out measurements which show how more
people engaging with nature would be better for people’s health and education.
So
Natural England in partnership with others ran a 2 year pilot to develop a way
that children’s access to NE could be measured.
The
aim of this pilot was to find ways of measuring children’s access to NE. The results from 2 years confirm that we can
quantify and monitor the proportions of all children in England
The Results
Natural England Report - Published 10 February 2016
Monitor of engagement of the natural environment: A pilot to develop an indicator of visits to the natural environment by children https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/498944/mene-childrens-report-years-1-2.pdf
The Results
Natural England Report - Published 10 February 2016
Monitor of engagement of the natural environment: A pilot to develop an indicator of visits to the natural environment by children https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/498944/mene-childrens-report-years-1-2.pdf
The
pilot stated that there were clear links between better health and access to NE
across all socio-economic groups, so for this reason the review set out its role
of increasing people’s access to NE.
The research relates to children
under 16 in England
How
often children visited NE was linked to ethnicity and socioeconomic status,
with those from BAME households less likely to visit
74%
of non-BAME children visited NE frequently
77%
of children from higher income households (socio-economic groups A & B)
visited NE frequently
65%
of children from lower income households (socioeconomic groups D & E)
visited NE frequently
56%
of BAME children visited NE frequently
11%
of non-BAME children never visited NE
9%
of children from higher income households never visited NE
14%
of children from lower income households never visited NE
17%
of BAME children never visited NE
As
well as highlighting clear social inequalities in how children are accessing
NE, this report also shows a strong link between adults visiting NE and
children living in the same household visiting NE
In
households where the adults were frequent visitors to NE, 82% of the children
were also frequent visitors
In
households where the adults rarely (or never) visited NE, the proportion of
children visiting frequently halved to 39%
75%
visited NE with a parent; 15% visited with grandparents; and another 15%
visited with other family members that didn’t live with them
8%
visited NE with their schools
10%
of children in higher income households visited NE with their school
6%
of children in the less affluent C2 and DE groups visited NE with their school
22%
of children visited NE without adults (alone or with other children)
48%
of children visited local urban parks
Analysis
of other data has previously shown that adults are also more likely to be
frequent visitors to NE when there are children in their household.
Variations by ethnicity and
Socio-Economic Group (SEG)
The
proportions of children visiting NE were lower amongst BAME and less affluent
people.
More
affluent socio-economic groups were also more likely to visit with Scouting or
Guiding Groups and visiting with grandparents was noticeably higher among
children from the non-BAME population (18% non-BAME vs 5% BAME)
Visiting
with friends (with no adults present) was also higher among children in the
non-BAME population (15% non-BAME vs 8%)
Locality
Children
were more likely to visit local places than places further away.
The
highest proportion of visits by children to ‘non-local’ destinations was to
urban parks and the beach/other coastline (11% and 8% respectively).
Places
visited most often by children were urban parks (48%), playgrounds (28%),
playing fields (26%) and country parks (16%).
Of
visits to nature reserve in the previous month
7%
non-BAME visited a nature reserve
10%
of children from higher income households visited a nature reserve
4%
of children from lower income households visited a nature reserve
3%
BAME visited a nature reserve
I
think the results in this section show that we should focus on getting BAME
into nature close to their homes in cities and that very few are visiting
nature reserves, so work needs to be done in this area.
Reasons
for taking children out was similar for all families for the top few reasons, however
overall the reasons for BAME were more limited – to play with children, let
children play, get fresh air, spend time with family and relax and unwind
Summary
There
is a strong link between the visiting behaviors of adults and children within
households. I therefore think that we need to focus more on getting parents out
into nature and not just on the children.
The
results of the report show obvious social inequalities in how children are
accessing natural environments, with both their ethnicity and socio-economic
background having a big negative impact.
I
think these results are shocking and are what led me to go ahead with
organising the “Race Equality in Nature” National Conference hosted by Bristol Zoo Gardens
There
are complicated reasons why BAME people don’t go out into nature. I’ve interviewed people and things that come
up repeatedly are feeling the cold (lots of BAME people will say that they are
genetically evolved to live in hot climates and therefore feel the cold more
than non BAME people), lack of warm and waterproof clothing, crowded inner city
parks in the summer with anti-social children hogging play equipment, poverty
and lack of public transport, fear of gangs or that their children will be
targeted as trouble-makers by the police, cultural fear and dislike of dogs, fear
of racism in the (white) countryside and feeling that nature activities are for
white people as these are the images used by nature charities and television.
Once
I’d started to think about these issues from my family’s point of view, I have
realized that things will only change if we can help overcome barriers. We also need BAME role models within nature
TV and then try to increase the number of BAME people who watch these programs. I hope that one day, when I walk in the
countryside it will be normal to see a BAME family walking along, enjoying the
nature around them.
About the Writer
Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig
Mya-Rose Craig is a 14 year old young British Bangladeshi birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist, activist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She loved seeing Mountain Gorillas in East Africa and Penguins in Antarctica over Christmas 2015, her 7th continent.
Mya-Rose was a Bristol European Green Capital 2015 Ambassador along with Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tony Juniper, Simon King, Miranda Krestovnikoff and Shaun the Sheep! See the full list of Bristol Ambassadors. She has also been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter
Fantastic post! I totally agree with you about getting the parents out in the field to influence the children. I have been trying to convert my Nigerian girlfriend to birding but she laughingly says "it's for white people." I havent given up! I'm trying to reach women my age and younger who reside in cities and think of hiking and outdoors as trendy--using birding as the gateway to care more about conservation. Your camp effort is tremendous--congratulations on your work and for getting started so soon. I too grew p birding but did not discover my utter passion for it until my late 20s (now I'm in my early 40s). I look forward to following you for years to come.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your support. It's great that you are trying to change things too. The thing I've learnt from our Conference last Friday, Race Equality in Nature, is that there are lots of ways to enjoy nature other than the scientific way of identifying birds, moths, butterflies, orchid etc. Try persuading your Nigerian friend to walk through an open green space with you, just taking in the beauty of your surroundings. Have you seen my recent posts about 30 days wild? There are lots of ideas there to try.
DeleteI have indeed taken her out, and in fact she has thanked me many times over for our walks in nature. But what I have introduced to her is so unlike what she does with her other girlfriends so to her it's distinct to me, esp. as I am her only close friend who is white. She has great enthusiasm, she just needs more practice! I love your ideas for 30 days of Nature and those are so easy to bring into one's life. We just have to open our senses!
DeleteThat's brilliant. I think that people are very influenced by friends and this is the joy of having friends from a range of diverse backgrounds. I don't have much option for this, as my school is pretty much almost all white, but I do have friends who are the children of my mum's family and friends. It's hard making 30 Days Wild easy enough for people in inner flats to do but I'm going to keep trying.
ReplyDelete