BirdGirl: Teenage twitcher becomes youngest recipient of an honorary degree
Mya-Rose Craig strives to give ethnic minorities access to the environment, by running camps and running campaigns.
Thursday 20 February 2020 14:22, UK
A teenage bird watcher has become the youngest person in the UK to receive an honorary degree, after she picked up the honour at Bristol University.
Ms Craig, who has not yet taken her A-Levels, was honoured by the institution for her environmental activism and campaign to increase ethnic diversity in nature, conservation and wildlife film-making.
The 17-year-old is also the founder of the organisation Black2Nature, which aims to give Visible Minority Ethnic (VME) communities' equal access to the natural environment, which she says is "essential for saving our planet".
Blogging as BirdGirl, Ms Craig is the youngest person in the world to have seen half of the planet's bird species - a passion which began at a young age and has given her her love of nature.
Reacting to the news that she would be receiving the award she said: "I felt so emotional hearing that I had been nominated with such famous people and realising that my message must be getting through."
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, her nominator Professor Rich Pancost, Head of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, said he was "proud" to know and work with Ms Craig, adding she challenges people to be "better and bolder".
Addressing the graduation ceremony, Ms Craig said: "I cannot thank you enough for giving this great honour.
"This originally felt so unbelievable that when I first got the email, I thought it was some strange type of scam or prank from one of my friends!
"I've been very fortunate growing up, having had the opportunity to go out into nature and develop a love of the environment and birds.
"But I do also have Bangladeshi heritage and one day I suddenly became very aware that there were other people like me enjoying nature - and this was my sort of light bulb moment."
She described how she organised a nature camp when she was just 12-years-old and encouraged other VME children to go with her, so she could teach them about the world around them, and from there - continued her environmental work.
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"I hope that all of you have your light bulb moment, where you realise what you really care about and you really want to fight for."
Bristol University is known for its climate stance, and became the first and only university to declare a climate emergency in 2018, and recently announced it had divested its investments from fossil fuel companies, in an effort to boost its green credentials.