Leila Taheri used to go to the Welsh Harp wetlands in north-west London when she was a schoolgirl. “At the time,” she says, “it was a bit of a dump, and dangerous.” She’d occasionally play rounders there, but it wasn’t somewhere you wanted to linger. During the first lockdown in 2020, she rediscovered it. “Before then,” says Taheri, who is 37 and works in advertising, “it was just a place I lived near and visited periodically. But during lockdown, I grew to really care about this space. And when you care about something, you celebrate it.”
The Welsh Harp is a 160-hectare (340-acre) nature reserve and site of special scientific interest around Brent reservoir. It’s home to bullfinches, wrens, jays, greenfinches and willow warblers, but also a lot of litter. “There were decades of rubbish in the water,” says Taheri. “We’re talking trolleys,birdcages, cones.” In August 2020, Taheri WhatsApped her neighbours and asked them to join a litter pick: 25 people turned up and collected 68 bags of rubbish.
“We pulled out two Kensington and Chelsea parking meters,” she says. “A year later, we pulled out a gun, and had to call the police.”
Taheri has continued the work with a group called Friends of the Welsh Harp. “At the beginning,” she says, “we concentrated on litter picks, but now it’s more community-focused. We have refreshments and stop for chats, because it’s about community spirit: people having fun, learning about trees and birds, and forming connections.” As well as monthly litter picks, Friends of the Welsh Harp run tree walks with local ecologists and bird walks with ornithologists.
“I find it moving and inspiring how she used her anger to fuel her and make a real difference to her environment and community,” says friend Moya Sarner. “Her campaign has made a real difference not only to the Welsh Harp but for the wider community, who are now more involved, more environmentally aware, and have come to see the value of their local reservoir.”
Taheri has expanded her work into more general environmental activism. “No one was paying any attention to the wetlands,” she says. Much of the group’s work has been to remind the agencies responsible for the Welsh Harp of their obligations. “Bird populations have been declining every decade,” says Taheri, “because there is so much pollution. The trash screens in the rivers aren’t emptied. I sent so many emails and tweeted so much about the state of the trash screens. But the Environment Agency told me it wasn’t a priority.”
Currently, Taheri is trying to block a planned bridge across the northern marsh. “The bridge will save locals a few minutes’ walk,” she says, “but it will destroy a habitat. Birds won’t be able to breed there any more.”
Taheri admits her conservation efforts have “taken over my life”. “One of my friends called last week and said, ‘Leila, what’s going on? We don’t see you any more.’” Taheri is also studying for a masters in psychoanalytic studies and has a full-time job. “I don’t have time for socialising,” she says. “I do feel a bit guilty, like I’m neglecting my friends. But I don’t feel I have a choice.”
This, she adds, is because “we live in such urban environments”. And with green spaces increasingly under threat “we need them to be functioning as they are supposed to.”
Taheri is British-Iranian, and as a child used to press flowers into notebooks, and write poetry alongside them. “So Iranian,” she jokes. “I think now I’ve come full circle. When I was a child, I wanted to be an environmental lawyer, then a marine biologist. My favourite books were about flowers and plants, mushrooms and trees. Now, I’ve stumbled into that world as an adult. It’s amazing to be doing the stuff I always wanted to do as a child.”
She emphasises that she is not doing this out of the goodness of her heart, or sacrificing anything. “I love it, but yesterday I had a wobble. Work is so busy. I’m behind on my dissertation. I have events that need organising. I had a little breakdown.”
When asked about her treat, characteristically Taheri is concerned about the environment. Her local council doesn’t collect food waste, so her leftover food goes into the bin. “It would be so great,” she says, “if it could be turned into compost.”
Team Guardian Angel provides her with a composter that fits on her balcony, complete with juicy, wriggling worms. She grows lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, beans, tomatoes and radishes on her balcony, and homemade compost will aid her green-fingered efforts. “It’s going to be great,” she says. “I’ve already formed an attachment to my worms.” Even if sometimes, in bed at night, she worries that they might be cold.
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