James Miller is a 19 year old environmental activist, filmmaker and speaker.
He started making short documentaries at the age of 13, in the hope of inspiring other young people to engage with the local wildlife and step up to protect it. These have won national competitions, and received acclaim from BBC nature presenters.
Since then he’s done Instagram takeovers for National Geographic Kids and Surrey Wildlife Trust, and featured in magazines and publications, including The Smithsonian Mag, The Guardian, BBC Wildlife, and the RSPB’s magazines.
Soon he began to realise the true scale of the threats that climate change and biodiversity loss posed, and started to take a far more active role in activism and campaigning. This has taken him to the inside of 10 Downing Street to discuss environmental policy, and onto national television as an advocate for the youth environmental movement.
He was one of several young people that wrote the foreword for the State of Nature Report (previously written by Sir David Attenborough) and launched the report on the 4th of October with Jon Snow and Bella Lack live on Channel 4 news.
He then reappeared on Channel 4 news in a segment discussing the need for the general election to focus on the urgent climate and biodiversity crises.
He’s spoken at the Royal Geographical Society and the RSPB’s AGM, and on stage with Chris Packham and other young campaigners at Birdfair. Embracing the inner activist, he’s even addressed crowds from atop a bench at a march against whaling in London with Dominic Dyer.
He’s an ambassador for Surrey Wildlife Trust, and a youth council member of the RSPB and Reserva Youth Land Trust (an organisation aiming to create the world’s first fully youth-funded nature reserves).
Currently James is trying to balance activism ahead of COP26 alongside studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge University.
