Joey is a young conservationist determined to protect the planet and the natural world while inspiring and educating others to do the same. At the start of 2020, Joey made a New Year’s Resolution to start a website about environmental issues and so his blog, “Helping the Planet” was born. Since then he has championed campaigns from The Time Is Now climate change lobby to No Mow May, relentlessly encouraging family and friends to become involved as well. He has transformed his family’s lifestyle – from small changes like turning off their outside light to protect bats, to bigger ones like reducing their weekly landfill waste by around three quarters. He has worked hard to combat single use plastic, getting creative with solutions like homemade bath bombs and beeswax wraps to use at home and give as gifts to help others cut down their plastic use as well. Joey is passionate about protecting nature within his local community. He carries out weekly litter picks with his two younger brothers and has turned his garden into a wildlife haven. So far this year, Joey and his brothers have built three hedgehog houses and thirteen nest boxes, some to keep and others to give as gifts to encourage others to help their local wildlife too. When visiting family, Joey can typically be found prowling around their garden, checking out which plants the bees seem to like and asking if he can take cuttings. Joey has recently been campaigning especially hard to protect hedgehogs, including writing to his MP and local fence companies and creating an information leaflet which he and his brothers delivered to over 150 houses in their local area. He has designed his own board game called Hedgehog Highways, highlighting the dangers facing garden hedgehogs and how to help them. It has been featured in Wildlife Watch, Wild Explorer and Whizz Pop Bang magazines, received positive feedback from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, People’s Trust for Endangered Species and Tiggywinkles and has been downloaded over 150 times. Joey’s ambition knows no bounds and he believes no-one is too young to make a difference.
