EARTH DAY SPECIAL
Meet the student tackling eco-anxiety and the teenager saving a local nature reserve
Suffering from eco-anxiety? KATIE MONK, 20, has the solution
Even though she’s barely out of her teens, Katie Monk has the kind of résumé a person twice her age would be proud of. She is an engagement volunteer at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, a youth council member of the RSPB and spoke at the Youth in Nature Summit in Cambridge earlier this year.
But possibly her proudest moment is appearing on Chris Packham’s YouTube nature show 8 Out of 10 Bats to discuss eco-anxiety, if only because it gave her the chance to point out how important it is to hold on to hope.
“When you’re doom-scrolling through the news, it’s easy to feel alone, to feel that no one cares,” says Monk, who is studying ecology and conservation at the University of St Andrews. “I’ve had moments where I’ve felt so utterly hopeless and overwhelmed about everything that’s going on.”
Her advice for anyone suffering with eco-anxiety is not to face things alone. Getting involved with the “many local, nationwide and global conservation initiatives” can make a big difference.
“When you’re part of the community, you very quickly realise that working together is the best thing to be doing. There is action we can take to alleviate this doom and gloom, and we can use hope as a catalyst to take that positive action.” Monk, who is also a youth advisory panel member for the British Trust for Ornithology and surveys populations of bats roosting with her local Bat Conservation Trust, adds: “We need to change people’s perspectives and views about conservation and activism. Once we do that, it will be much easier to find optimism for the future.”
Nature lover KABIR KAUL, 18, took on a London council and won
As a four-year-old
