Olivia Mandle, young EU climate ambassador: "We are on the brink of the abyss. We have to go out on the streets more"

He has been asking for environmental education since he was 2 years old and adds: "I have the feeling that climate activism has a woman's name"

   MADRID, 19 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The young Catalan activist Olivia Mandle, 15 years old and ambassador of the Climate Pact of the European Commission and 'La España Azul', has warned that the reality of climate change is "crude and simple". "We are on the brink of the abyss. There is time, but there is less and less. I think we have to go out more. We have to shout more that we want change, but really," she stressed.

Mandle believes that politicians are necessary to pass laws that address the deterioration of nature and affirms that "photos" of activists with politicians or vice versa do not matter to insist that we have to change and take to the streets. And although he is "optimistic", in an interview with Europa Press, she laments that citizens are "lazy" when it comes to acting and warns that "inaction is and will be the worst disease" that one can suffer.

In this sense, the young activist warns that she does not see much encouragement in young people, "especially from Spain", who want to awaken their more "animal" or activist soul. "On the other hand, the little ones, yes. I see in them a desire to learn and put into practice what they feel they can improve," she explains.

For this reason, he defends environmental education from the age of 2. "This is something that I always transmit in all my presentations and I ask the Government. That is the solution. If we have children who are more knowledgeable about reality, they will be able to change things more easily," she claims.

In addition, it warns against "so much screen" in educational centers, since it considers that "they have to go outside, in the fresh air, to go on excursions, to clean forests."

Initiated in climate activism in 2019, since she was 12 years old, and focused on the defense of dolphin sanctuaries, the Spanish woman assures that she works to "unmask the reality after captivity that is nothing more than "leisure and business." A million-dollar business in this country," he points out.

The European Commission itself highlights Mandle's motivation to "connect young people concerned about the planet" in order to "inspire their generation to reduce their carbon footprint and use their voices to influence others." Mandle has received these words with "great enthusiasm and great responsibility" and assures that he finds it "very intelligent and beautiful" that the European body decides to incorporate such a young person.

His initiative consists of the creation of sanctuaries to avoid the captivity of the species that are currently in zoos and the most important thing about it, as he insists, is "the work it does for future generations" by allowing "they to continue being born, growing, reproducing and dying in freedom, in its habitat".

In this sense, Mandle praises the studies on the 'Mission Blue' website through which protected areas are being created, "where species move freely, and it has been studied that the increase in fish in the area is such that It also means that fishermen benefit from this new protected area."

In short, she reports that this fight has always been "deeply" linked to her. If he looks back, as he affirms, childhood memories come back to him where his greatest pastime was to imagine himself in nature, helping and saving animals.

To this is added his firm conviction that there is in his house -in which he says there are no screens- of "love for nature, for the sea, the forests and enormous respect for animals".

"My parents gave me all the information I needed about captivity, so that, without knowing it, I had a feeling that I would fight for the well-deserved freedom of those animals," said the teenager.

Finally, Mandle has emphasized the number of young activists committed to the climate cause. "Feminism begins with us, with the woman, the girl. It starts at home and men can be very feminists, my father is. Feminism is clearly marking the climate fight, look how many of us are: Greta Thunberg, Vanesa Nekate or Luisa Neubauer, and so many more. Also men, but I do have the feeling that climate activism has a woman's name," she reflected.