“We can turn around the state of nature if we’re more diverse”

Nadeem Perera is a TV presenter, author, activist and high-profile birder. In 2020, he co-founded Flock Together, a bird-watching collective that encourages people of colour to enjoy nature and look after their mental health.

Flock Together holds monthly walks in the UK and has branches in New York and Tokyo. In 2021, Nadeem and co-founder Ollie Olanipekun set up the Flock Together Academy to support young people as they explore nature.

Nadeem and Ollie’s book, Outsiders: The Outdoors Is Yours, was published in 2022 and is ‘part memoir, part manifesto’, exploring key aspects of the Flock Together philosophy. In 2023, Nadeem was part of the advisory group behind The People’s Plan For Nature.

Have you noticed nature depletion? Is it harder to find certain species of birds?

Yes, we do notice that, and it’s an eye-opening experience for all of those that come on our walks every month. There’s something quite hard-hitting about when we go out there expecting to see these birds. People are seeing all these green spaces. Everyone’s saying: ‘Oh yeah, that’s green, that’s great.’ But we see [no wildlife].

How can we start to fix this?

[To talk about] solutions, you look at somewhere like where I’m from, East London. Who knows how many answers are in schools full of thousands of kids in under-supported areas that are just not being tapped into? How many answers have we missed over the past 30 years?

I know very, very intelligent people from the backgrounds that I’m from. There’s no doubt they’re creative, but no one is communicating this space of the natural world, environmentalism, wildlife – no one is communicating it to them. And that’s where I want to get in.

I want to be able to find the right language, find the right methods, to connect those two worlds with each other because I believe we can turn around the state of nature, the state of biodiversity very, very quickly if we’re more diverse in our approach.

Are you seeing the effect nature loss is having on people as well?

It’s very evident. Look at the figures for mental health issues like depression and anxiety – I’m sure they’re higher in this part of the world. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that the depletion of nature and the disconnect from the general population and nature has a lot to do with that.

When I was younger, going through a turbulent time, struggling in East London’s urban jungle, it felt like the world was caving in, I didn’t really know what to do. I left school at 15, and my mum by that time had moved me out to suburban Essex. So I’m there in a little bit more of a green area – all my friends are at school and I’m sat in this forest, looking around, and this is how I fell into birding.

What I liked about that forest was the fact that nothing around me was reminding me that I needed to produce something. No one asked me anything; those trees weren’t asking me for anything.

A green woodpecker came and landed right in front of me. I had never seen anything so wonderful, and at that time I believed beautiful things only came to those who went down the conventional route of school. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And just that small one moment in nature really changed my life, really changed my perspective. It just allowed me to see there is beauty in the world that’s right there for me that doesn’t require me to jump through hoops for someone else capitalising off my hard work.

And I think that’s the message I would communicate to everybody, especially the younger generation: just get out into nature and see those moments and see for yourself the impact it will have on your mood throughout the day, let alone if you sustain that habit and the effect it will have in years to come.

Do you think some people are put off nature because they don’t know enough about it?

I definitely agree with that. I’ve coached kids in football for five years. We go for a run together and then we play football, but all the time on my runs, I’m like, ‘What’s that, boys?’ if we hear a green woodpecker call. And they’ll be like, ‘Green woodpecker’. So there’s always that chance to engage these guys with nature through their language, which is football.

So I’m saying in these approaches to secure biodiversity, we need to address our own lack of diversity. I feel like that’s been a massive issue. I feel like there’s so much space to explore in terms of how much fun we could have communicating this space to a variety of listeners and viewers. I think it’s exciting.

You’ve been involved in the People’s Plan For Nature. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

I was there for one of the Assemblies. I was also there as part of the advisory panel during the design process of the campaign. And I think it’s a fantastic initiative – RSPB, WWF and National Trust all got together and presented the community with a general outline of issues that we face as a country regarding the environment, on many levels – community grassroots up to legislation.

All those topics were covered, but breaking it down into ways that the public can understand – because not everyone has been fortunate enough or not everyone was able to be highly educated on these subjects – and then giving the power to the people to come up with their own solutions.

And the inspiration I saw in that room was absolutely incredible because we had people from… I don’t want to say old… Experienced people and young people were all coming together and that was one of the few spaces I saw where there’s that generational connection, which is another important aspect to this story: sharing and handing down experiences.

There was a kid there that had no interest in nature before, but he managed to get pulled in and he was there contributing all of these great ideas, great answers. It was empowering to see an entire community together, working in unison.

I think if the charities involved continue to do this kind of work, continue to engage, it’s only going to get bigger and it’s only going to bear more fruit.