Environmental Activist Is Revamping Urban Landscape With Her Clever 'Guerrilla Gardening' Idea

When someone thinks of activists, they usually imagine a squad of young guys and girls marching on the streets, raising fists, and flaunting their slogans. But one young woman in London is shattering the way we imagine rebellion and activism. Ellen Miles, an environmental activist, marches on the streets with her platoon, not with placards but rather with shovels, trowels, flower bulbs, and pouches of seedlings, per CNN. Miles is on a mission to green-ify all the patches and spaces in urban settlements that have been rendered useless, abandoned, and unloved.

Nature is becoming an afterthought

“Before we urbanized the world, everyone had access to nature all the time. Now, nature is becoming an afterthought,” Miles told CNN. This activist movement is not about violence, hate, or aggression. It’s wholesome and empowering, she said. “I call it botanarchy,” she told The Guardian. She claimed that her movement doesn’t just address the climate crisis, but also helps in recovering the dwindling populations of pollinating insects like bees, moths, butterflies, and wasps.

The starting point

It was the time of the lockdown in 2020. People were isolated in their homes. Many of them, who didn’t have plants in their apartments or balconies, were entirely cut off from nature. Entry into parks was prohibited. The entire scenario struck Miles with the powerless feeling of injustice and anger. Why humans had to suffer due to a lack of nature around them. Propelled by these sentiments, she founded “Nature Is a Human Right,” a campaign designed to advocate for people’s daily access to green spaces.

Her attempts to persuade the council to give spaces to the community proved to be unsuccessful until she came across a friend who introduced her to the idea of “tactical urbanism.” Clueless she was, but she saw hope. Miles took to social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook to share the revolutionary idea of “guerrilla gardening.”

Movement caught a spark

As the word spread, Miles’ insight about gardening and the environment started gaining attention. “I wasn’t a gardener. I was learning as I went along. But I just wanted the streets to be greener,” she confessed. Soon enough, her volunteers were embellishing the streets with moss graffiti, a form of street art where living moss is used to create patterns or words on walls. Seed bombs, wildflower seeds parcelled in clay balls, were blasted into the streets.

Gradually, Miles became an inspiration, leading young people to think that they should pay attention and show care for their environment. “Young people today are very awake to issues like climate change, inequality, and mental health. Guerrilla gardening intersects with all of that. It’s something you can do with your own two hands and see the impact immediately,” shared Miles.

What is Guerrilla Gardening?

“Guerrilla gardening is the practice of planting in public spaces in your neighbourhood,” Miles explained to The Guardian. In conversation with CNN, she described it with the metaphor of graffiti. “Think of it like graffiti, but with wildflowers instead of spray paint.” For Miles, personally, it’s all about “community and ownership,” she said.

Vision for the world

Reinforcing the idea of why guerrilla gardening is the need of the hour, Miles said most of the urban spaces have been privatized. “So-called public spaces have been really privatised, and communities actually don’t get a chance to interact with them often. So I think we do have a right to do that in the places we put down our roots, where we live.” She asserted that her way of fight is just the same as other kinds of activism. The only difference is, she aspires to create a world where “human habitats are more filled with nature than they are deprived of it, and where there’s equitable access to nature.”