“Intrinsically connected”: how human neurodiversity could help save nature | Biodiversity

WHen Joe Harkness received a message from a friend on the abdomen of macerant butterflies to verify their genitals to identify the species, it sparked an idea of a new book on the obsessions of fauna. But over time, it has turned into a completely different book: a Clarion call to adopt neurodiversity in the fight against the extinction crisis.

Throughout Great Britain, 15% of people are neurodivergentes. In the neurodivergente writing process, by nature, Harkness discovered that 30% of conservation employees were neurodivergent. For what?

“People like me, especially those who are not diagnosed, have probably found that nature was their balm from the point of view of mental health,” said Harkness when we meet under a very peaceful old oak near his home in rural Norfolk. “The other thing is that we are different from what we define as neurotypical people. Therefore, we love more strange things. Special interests. Nature lends itself to different people.”

He interrupts his own answers by repeatedly identifying micro -miles – his last special interest – zipping on our way. “Have you seen this?” Is it a yellow shell? No, it’s another of these numbers of numbers of pearls. Sorry. They are everywhere. “

Harkness’s full -time work teaches autistic teaching and other neurodrive children, but he did not suspect that he had ADHD until a teacher colleague said he thought he had done so. It took an additional six years to obtain a formal diagnosis and access to the drugs which he found extremely useful.

Naturalists such as the broadcaster Chris Packham and the writer Dara Mcanulty have piloted the flag of neurodiversity in the environment sector, but Harkness interviews dozens of less famous conservationists who have undertaken pioneering work on everything, discussions on the UN climate to the safeguard of the Seychelles Black Park and Seychelles.

Harkness, whose first book, Bird Therapy, was a self-published surprise success, explains why neurodivergentes can thrive in ecological jobs.

But it also lends a strong argument for the natural world needing a neurodiverse cohort to save it. Next to the old oak where we are talking, there is a little scattered meadow, filled with a jumble of wild herbs, insects and bird flit. “There is biodiversity right in front of you,” says Harkness, pointing the meadow. “You look at him in a way, I look at him in another way. Therefore, if we try to help him, we can bring different things to it. If you look at it from a completely different angle due to how your brain is wired, you bring a different approach again.

“You cannot be creative and change and do good things unless you use all the different skills of the people with whom you work. If you do not have a diversity of people, you do not have biodiversity. You cannot have one without the other. They are intrinsically connected.”

More specifically, Harkness reveals how neurodrive ecologists find that their “superpowers” can make them particularly effective in their work, with skills including lateral thought, hyperfocus, skills in memory and empathy, as well as to have an ability to work in the field.

Autistic ecologist Naomi Davis told Harkness that their favorite aspect of work was to find and categorize species. Davis and the ornithologist Consultant Colin Everett speak of sensory superpowers who help their survey work: detect fragments of songs of birds that everyone is missing; Even hear bats resonate – calls that are generally far too acute for adults to hear them.

Obviously, the people of the neurodivers can be vital champions for biodiversity, although Harkness is frankly honest about his own ADHD. “I do not have the impression that the symptoms I feel are useful or conducive to well-being and maximum performance at work,” he wrote.

And some people are still wary of disclosing neurodiversity. He interviewed Emma Marsh, executive director of the RSPB, who did not reveal his diagnosis of autism later in life to work colleagues for a while, although when she finally did, she was encouraged by receiving such a positive response.

As Harkness explains, exploiting the skills of Neurodiverse employees often requires changes in work practices. Field work – in peaceful and natural contexts – is an attraction for many neurodrive environmentalists, but office workers may need adaptations. A main environmentalist was authorized to carry out his meetings outside.

Does the conservation sector meet the needs of its neurodivers employees? “The approaches to neuro-inclusion in the conservation sector are at best fragmentary, with certain areas of exceptional practice, and terrible stories of discrimination and needs are not respected,” explains Harkness.

Although “a large part of what I found in the sector seemed really fantastic,” he said: “With a little excavation, everyone [in conservation organisations] was open to the fact that they still have a lot of work to do. But neurodivergence is a relatively new concept. I would not expect them to be entirely, all dancing with their practices. »»

The conservation sector has been criticized several times for having been so white and Harkness says that any assessment of its efforts to accommodate neurodiversity must examine “to what extent it is well committed to all those who have a protected characteristic”.

Harkness does not want neurodiversity to be a “Dei trend” that comes and goes. For a significant change, he says, there must be more ways to conservation by learning and not only degrees.

Working as a main teacher in an “exceptional” complex needs school, Harkness is fiercely critical of traditional British education and the multi-chain academy system in particular, so as not to meet the needs of neurodiversity and nature. Without more literate schooling, he says, many young neurodiverses will not be able to discover the Balm of the natural world – or the well -adjusted jobs available.

“If you need something different, you are not going to get it,” he wrote about the academy’s school system.

His own experience of personal education was dark. Lack of a diagnosis of ADHD as a youngster, Harkness was simply struck off as a naughty child of a single parent of social housing.

When he obtained his late diagnosis, he cried for how long it took? “What I really afflicted is my experience in high school,” he says. “The drugs have completely changed my life for the best. It’s not for everyone, but it worked for me. What if I had that in 11th year? Would I have my levels A and went to university? Would I be a completely different person? Do I want to be? No. But it’s sorrow for what I could have been.”