Who are you?

That feels like a very profound question to start off a blog post! I guess I’m a mishmash of lots of different things, I always find it difficult to explain what my jobs are and then to explain that yes, they are real jobs and no, I can’t believe I get to do this stuff either! I’m Co-Director of UK Youth for Nature, arguably one of the best jobs in the world, I get to work with such an amazing team of passionate, creative, nature-loving young people. I’m also a wildlife artist, aspiring natural history author and General Manager of Curlew Action, another incredible non-profit, working to reverse the decline of Curlews and to promote wider natural history education.

How did you get here?

Skipping over the long story of how I fell in love with nature and went to uni to study biology, my career all started with an email. Well actually, lots of emails. I sent one to every wildlife film company in Bristol asking for work experience, of the few who got back to me, a man called Richard Brock was one. I started working part-time for Richard and through that, discovered Mary Colwell and her campaign for a Natural History GCSE. So, drum roll please, I emailed her. Two and a half years later, Mary and I are good friends and colleagues at Curlew Action. UK Youth for Nature came along (through the magical medium of email) when they reached out to Curlew Action for support for their Natural Kingdom: Wild Walls campaign.

I was hooked, and reached out to the then Co-Director, Talia (via messenger pigeon this time), to ask how I could get involved. Side note: at the time I didn’t realise that UKY4N was for 16-35 year olds, I thought it was for U18s, so I remember being really impressed by how sophisticated and experienced her communication was. When a highly competent 28-year-old professional greeted me in our Zoom intro call, I was more than a little embarrassed… (side, side note: having now worked with numerous U18s who would put my communication and professionalism skills to shame, the joke is on me, again). When Matt and Talia decided to step down as Co-Directors last summer, I applied for the role and, as they say, the rest is history!

What is the coolest part of your work?

Honestly, the best bit is the people, I’ve met some of my best friends through UK Youth for Nature and I’m so grateful to Matt and Talia for starting such an amazing community. I’m so honoured to be a part of it as Co-Director. Working in the environmental sector means wearing a lot of different hats, being willing to learn different skills and having an open mindset to taking on new challenges. It is always exciting and always busy, I love it. Through my work I’ve met and worked alongside so many inspiring people doing amazing things. My work has had me giving talks across the UK, running workshops in France, attending the premiere of Wild Isles (in the same room as David Attenborough!), speaking on radio, podcasts, writing for magazines. I love what I do and I’m so grateful to everyone who has been part of my journey so far.

Biggest nature obsession?

Moths! These fascinating little guys don’t get enough love. At uni I developed the slightly weird habit of regularly talking about moths when I was drunk, to the point that my friends started calling me moth girl. I would like to take this moment to formally apologise to all the drunk students who had to listen to all my cool moth facts. I wish I could tell you that I’ve grown out of this habit, but based on a recent drunken night, I definitely have not… In fact, it’s worse (or even better?) because I now do it sober as well.

Any non-nature obsessions?

During the first lockdown in 2020 I picked up a pencil for the first time in years and rediscovered my love of drawing. I even ended up joining the masses who created a lockdown online business! Drawing really helped to keep me sane during what could have been a really lonely and difficult time. Highland cows are my number one favourite thing to draw, their hair creates such great texture and I just love their expressions! 

Top tips for a budding environmentalist?

Email everyone! Get involved, reach out to people, you never know where it will take you!

If you’re interested in joining our community of like-minded young environmentalists, you can find out more information here.

The environmental calendar is peppered with special days, days dedicated to species, habitats, even whole ecosystems. Do we really need another day? Shouldn’t we just be celebrating all species, all of the time? Can having a date in the calendar really help a bird that has no idea what ‘World Curlew Day’ means? You can probably tell from the fact that it continues beyond the first paragraph, that in my opinion yes, I it can help them. My older brother had a handwritten note that he had pinned to his cork board saying “something that can be done at any time is never done at all”. It rings true for so many parts of life, including celebrating our wildlife, having special days to celebrate species like the curlew helps to prevent those celebrations from continuously slipping down the to do list to make way for the hum drum of daily life admin. They help to focus our attention, to bring communities and stakeholders together, and to remind us that there is stuff out there worth fighting for.

UKY4N and curlews: what’s the link?

Alongside my role at UK Youth for Nature, I am General Manager of a small charity called Curlew Action, an organisation working to reverse the decline of Curlews and promote wider natural history education. Curlew Action and UKY4N have partnered on several campaigns including Natural Kingdom: Wild Walls and Lines in the Sand.

I’ve worked in curlew conservation for two and a half years now and it is humbling to see the lengths that people will go to protect these birds. For each person, the call of a curlew means something different, for some, they are a meadow or moorland bird, heralding spring with their bubbling calls. For others, haunting curlew cries drift over mudflats and flooded fields, serenading listeners clutching hot flasks of tea in the winter cold. For still others, they are a memory of a childhood wilderness that has fallen silent. World Curlew Day is a day to bring us all together, everyone who has had their soul touched by the eerily beautiful cry of the curlew.

Photo by Tim Melling. Photo by Dirk Perry.

How did it all start?

Mary Colwell, Founder and Director of Curlew Action, started World Curlew Day in 2017 to help draw attention to the threats faced by curlew species around the world. Here in the UK, the Eurasian curlew has declined by 50% in my 25 year lifetime. A combination of high levels of predation, intensive farming and loss of nesting habitat has pushed these once numerous and widespread songsters to one of the most pressing conservation priority species in the UK. The wonderfully named Bristle-thighed curlew, so called because of the long bristle-like feathers on its lower belly, is facing invasive rats that we introduced to their once safe Hawaiian island home. The Far-Eastern curlew is losing vital habitat to coastal development across the Australasian Flyway. The Numenius family is declining across the world. The curlews are telling us that all is not well across our landscapes, if we ignore the urgent message woven into their piping cries, we will lose them, and with them great swathes of the wildlife that they live alongside.

Eurasian curlew by Andy Greggory

Bristle-thighed curlew by Merry Miller

Far-Eastern curlew by unknown

Why today?

The 21st of April is the day that Mary started her 500 mile walk across the UK to find out what is happening to curlews, it is the average egg laying day for Eurasian curlews, it also happens to be the feast day of the patron saint of curlews, St Bueno. There really could be no other day for World Curlew Day. Today, people around the world are celebrating curlews. Curlew Action is holding a special event in the New Forest, an evening of song and conversation with Mary Colwell and singer-songwriter, David Gray. Events are happening in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, in Yorkshire and Bristol; across the world curlew fans are sharing photos, poems, artwork and music to celebrate curlews. I’ve now been involved in three World Curlew Days, each year I end the day exhausted but full of hope. Surely, where there is this much love for a bird, we will not let it disappear, surely, we can turn this around.

Left: Aneeshwar Kunchala, 6

Above: Ellen Labib

Curlew Action art & poetry competition 2021

To find out more about curlews, visit the Curlew Action website.

Summary: Through our latest campaign, Not so Freshwater, we’re calling on the UK government to act now for our freshwater ecosystems, for nature and for our future. Freshwater ecosystems in the UK are internationally important. Of the world’s 210 chalk streams, 170 are in England. The UK’s freshwater network is made up of 200,000km of streams and rivers, plus thousands of ponds, lakes and ditches, forming a cross cross of habitats that support a diverse array of wildlife from dragonflies to water voles. Our freshwater systems should be one of the jewels of our landscape but no rivers in England, Wales or Northern Ireland are considered to be in high ecological health. In Scotland, 92% of rivers do not meet high ecological health.

Artist: Glesni Lewis

Theme: With rivers, lakes and waterways being such a source of inspiration for our community, both artistically and for our environmental activism, we wanted to celebrate how much they mean to us by asking our wider youth (16-35) community to submit artwork and poetry, following the themes of our campaign. They can be celebratory, environmentally-focussed or nostalgic – however you wish to represent your feelings towards these beautiful, crucial ecosystems is up to you! 

Artist: Spike Clark

Online and offline exhibition: You can submit your artwork to ukyouthfornature@gmail.com anytime between now and 8th of May. All artwork will be exhibited on our website and social media, and a selection will also be exhibited at our Chemical Cocktail event in London on 23rd May 2023. This event will bring youth campaigners and policy-makers together, in the hope that we can spread our campaign message far and wide, and achieve our campaign goals. We will have a small exhibition space in the corner for guests to view whilst attending the event.

Your artwork can be painted, drawn, sculpted, or however you wish to let your creative juices flow (pardon the pun!). Please send in a high resolution image of your artwork so that we can show it in its full glory. Poetry can be sent in as a word document, or alternatively, an image of the paper it was written on can be submitted. There is no limit to the number of pieces you can submit, but if you submit multiple we may not be able to exhibit all of your pieces.