Photo by Martin Sepion on Unsplash
Photo by ©AndrewMcGibbon on Friends of the Earth

Mya-Rose Craig

Activist

POSITION

Activist

COUNTRY

UK

SCENE

Environment

SOCIAL

Facebook

Twitter

What makes Mya-Rose Craig a Global Shaker?

Mya-Rose Craig, known on social media as ‘Bird Girl’, is a 17-year-old British Bagladeshi naturalist and environmentalist. She’s not only a respected voice on biodiversity and environmental action in general, but a strong speaker on the influence on institutional racism in the conservation movement.

Her list of achievements over the past four years is extensive. She’s:

  • Been designated one of Bristol’s most influential young people, alongside musician George Ezra and Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams
  • Organised two Race Equality in Nature conferences, assessing how to make the world of nature more ethnically diverse
  • Become a Minister in environmentalist Chris Packham’s People’s Manifesto for Wildlife, speaking at his Walk for Wildlife event in front of 10,000 people in Hyde Park
  • Been heavily involved in Youth Strikes and set up a local Extinction Rebellion Group
  • Appeared on a panel about Sustainable Future Cities with revered environmental writer George Monbiot and Green Party Member of the UK Parliament, Caroline Lucas
  • Become an ambassador for an international birding day and an initiative to help women and girls tell their stories through photography

In addition, Craig has organised numerous nature camps for children and teenagers, written articles, and appeared in the media. As an active user on Twitter, with over 8,000 followers, she’s been profiled in a documentary about how young women continue to speak out in the face of online hostility.

At age 11, she became the youngest person in the world to have seen 3,000 species of bird.

Speaking to the New Statesman, Craig said the climate breakdown was not a dystopian future, but a harsh reality.

“My maternal family is Bangladeshi and live in a country already facing some of the worst effects of climate breakdown,” she explains. “I hear constant news about the 3.5 million climate change refugees that have already fled to the capital, Dhaka, and the increasing numbers of typhoons destroying coastal communities and their livelihoods.”

She adds that the village where her grandfather lives has been heavily damaged by flooding and storms that wiped out rice crops and food supplies for the foreseeable future. “As a family we are able to help to support them, but most families are not so lucky.

“Countries like Bangladesh are starting to demand that the West take responsibility and take climate breakdown refugees. By 2060 it is predicted there will be up to one billion of them worldwide.”

Tags: Activism, birds, Climate crisis, UK

Last updated: November 11, 2019