Philosophy behind Black2Nature camps

Black2Nature Philosophy

Camp Chew March 2019
Copyright Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig

Black2Nature is committed to Enabling Visible Minority People (VME) and those from disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds to get outside into green spaces where ever they find them and so engage with nature, by:

Working with nature conservation & environmental organisations, Nature TV & media & nature education sector to adopt diversity as a core value, ensuring their staff, volunteers, trustees and membership become diverse; ensuring training on equality, diversity and inclusion and VME communities; carrying out monitoring throughout their organisations and committing to making change;

Enabling those from VME and areas of deprivation to access nature and the outdoors as it is essential for physical activity and health, mental well-being, enjoyment of our beautiful planet and to ensure our cities become sustainable;

Sports at Camp Chew March 2019
Copyright Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig

Ensuring that the children and volunteers who attend our camps learn about nature conservation and environmental issues through our discussions;

Discussing how our camp being vegetarian benefits the planet, why litter is bad for the environment and wildlife and why we are aiming to make our camps zero waste.

Total waste from Camp Chew March 2019

Copyright Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig

Thank you

Thank you to Compton Martin Village Hall and the many people who have supported Black2Nature and these camps and to Chew Valley Ringing Station and the birders who have offered their time in order to pass on their knowledge to young birders. Thank you also to Yeo Valley for the donation of ice-cream and butter.

Thank you to Opticron for the donation of five pairs of compact binoculars and discounted optical equipment to this project and to Bristol Ornithological Society for the donation of £2500 for 20 pairs of binoculars.

Thank you also to Go Outdoors for discounted camping equipment and Blenheim Scouts for discounted use of their minibus.

Thank you also to Burns Price Foundation, Quartet Community Funding, Community Access Support Services and Alpkit for helping to fund our projects. 

About the Author

Young environmentalist and birder Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig 

Copyright Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig

Camp Avalon and Camp Chew are the ideas of Mya-Rose Craig, who also organised the first events in 2015. She is organising the 2017 camp with the organisation she has formed Black2Nature and hopes to attract more young birders and inner-city teenagers.

Mya-Rose Craig is a 16-year-old young British Bangladeshi birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist, activist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes posts about birding, conservation and environmental issues from around the world. 

She has been involved in the UK organisation of the Youth Strikes encouraging young people from around the world to not go to school once a month and protest instead demanding immediate action to prevent climate breakdown. This is an interview in New Statesman.

She was a Bristol European Green Capital 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. 

She organised four nature camps for children and teenagers since 2015 and is helping to run four more in 2019. She also organised a conference, Race Equality in Nature, in June 2016 aiming to increase the ethnic diversity in nature and plans two more in 2019. She has also set up Black2Nature with the aim of working with organisations to increase the access to nature of Visible Minority Ethnic people and is President. Please connect with her on LinkedIn (Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig) so that she can invite you to join the Race Equality in Nature LinkedIn Group and be part of the change. 

She has given over 50 talks, speaking at conferences such as being on a panel with George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas on Sustainability and the Future of Cities. She is a Minister in Chris Packham's Manifesto for Nature in 2018 and spoke in front of 10,000 people at the Walk for Nature. She has also appeared on TV and radio and is particularly proud of being in Silent Roars, a short film which was part of Listen to Britain 2017 https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-silent-roars-2017-online. 

She has been awarded the Bath and West Show Environmental Youth Award 2017 for Bristol for her Black2Nature work EYA 2017. She was also listed as one of Bristol's BME top 100 powerlist.

She loved seeing Mountain Gorillas in East Africa and Penguins in Antarctica over Christmas 2015, her 7th continent. She became the youngest person to see 5000 birds in 2019 age 16 and is looking forward to visiting Brazil birding in 2019 and hopes to see half the birds in the world there. Please also like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter. If you would like to contact Mya-Rose about her work, please e-mail helenabcraig@hotmail.co.uk.