This is Olivia Mandle, Spain's Greta Thunberg

At just 16 years old, she is one of the most followed Spanish environmental activists on social media networks

Jacob Petrus

Madrid

Monday, 13 November 2023, 16:43

She is a bundle of optimism, energy, enthusiasm and hope; and at only 16 years of age, she has a book, a series on climate change and has presented an initiative to the Congress of Diputados supported by more than 150,000 signatures. This is Olivia Mandle, a young environmental activist born in Barcelona, who is already considered the Iberian Greta Thunberg. A parallel she somewhat welcomes, considering that the young Swede managed to get thousands of young people onto the streets to protest against climate change.

But Olivia is not far behind, and combining her love for animals and the Mediterranean sea, she created her first campaign on change.org in early 2020, when she was only 14 years old: #noesunpaisparadelfines, with the aim of ensuring that there are no more dolphinariums in Spain, a place where private companies profit by enclosing these animals in small pools.

The Animal Welfare Law, approved in March 2023, does not include dolphins. Spain holds the sixth most cetacean animals in captivity in the world and is the largest in Europe, with more than a hundred orcas and dolphins in captivity, only behind China, Russia and the United States. Numerous scientists and tens of thousands of Spaniards have supported Mandle's initiative, which is part of a global trend that other countries such as France, Canada, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Hungary, Nicaragua, Slovenia and Switzerland have joined.

Acknowledgements

Olivia has been recognised for her actions as a 'heroine' by the Jane Goodall Institute, who awarded her the International Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021. She is also an ambassador for the European Commission's European Climate Pact, a finalist in the Global Good Awards Canon Young Champion 2023 for her contribution to the fight against climate change, has been selected as one of this year's 37 young leaders by Womans of the World Festival, and has recently been named Food Hero by the FAO.

With such an impressive profile, Olivia has become one of the most recognised environmental activists, supported by the more than 11,000 followers on the social media network Instagram. She gives talks, lectures and workshops, travels all over the world. She recently visited the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica as part of a volunteer programme, and has just launched her own series on TV3: Kanviem?, in which she shows the consequences of climate change.

A very intense life for someone so young, who enjoys every moment "as if it were an opportunity that I can't waste". Her mother is fundamental in coordinating her schedule; "she juggles everything" and is one of the people, along with her father, who inspired Olivia's ecological awareness. At home, in addition to constantly watching documentaries by Jane Goodall, David Attenborough or Jaques Cousteau, the whole family enjoys reading, "thanks to the large amount of books that have always been available".

Although her environmental worries came when she was only five years old after a visit to the Barcelona Zoo, Olivia remembered "the contradictory feeling I felt when I saw my favourite animal, a dolphin, but knowing that after the show it would not return to the sea, it was not free". A little later, a film and, above all, a documentary about the true story of the cetacean, continued to stir Olivia's ecological conscience, until, at the age of 12, she was lucky enough to be able to sail the waters off the coast of Barcelona and see, for the first time, dolphins in the wild. A reason to promote the creation of a marine sanctuary in the Mediterranean called SUA: Save Us All, because "if we save the animals, we save ourselves".

New tool

Her kindness towards the oceans is evident in her 'Jelly Clean', a tool to clean the surface of the sea of microplastics, which she created in 2019 by recycling household objects and which she always takes with her when she goes out to sea. Now, she runs workshops to teach children how to make their own, who, for her, are "a source of hope and strength to face the future".

Olivia is an environmental activist every second of her life, and there is no limit to her desire to change the world. She organises an annual beach clean-up with her friends on the Costa Brava in September. Last year, around 500 volunteers collected around 700 kilos of rubbish in just one hour.

Her latest feat has been writing a book, an exciting adventure over 12 months, which she released on 19 October titled "Si es cosa tuya" (Yes, it is up to you), a text made to stir consciences and values and to transform our relationship with the planet. A guide to know how to act, with small or big actions that can be transformed into real change.

It is clear that Olivia, at just 16 years old, has fulfilled many of her dreams, even more than she could ever imagine. So when asked about how she imagines the Olivia Mandle of 2040, she thinks of "a marine biologist who travels the globe raising awareness around the world about how we can take better care of our environment".

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