Environmental campaigner Candice Nayda nominated for Pride of Australia Medal

CANDICE Nayda’s fight for animal rights spans as far back as her primary school years.

CANDICE Nayda’s fight for animal rights spans as far back as her primary school years.

“As a little kid, when I was in primary school, I read books about whaling and lots of different things came up about the dolphin slaughters in Taiji (Japan),” she said.

“I would design petitions to go around my primary school to stop the dolphin slaughter.”

Today, Ms Nayda, 29, continues to campaign for animal rights and the environment and has been nominated for a Pride of Australia Medal in the Environment category.

Over several years, Ms Nayda has helped rehabilitate the Stirling Quarry, planted trees as part of the State Government’s Million Trees project and assisted in the building of the Stebonheath wetlands at Munno Para West.

She also volunteers with Green Corp and marine activist organisation Sea Shepherd.

However, she said her greatest achievement was highlighting the plight of sharks earlier this year.

In January, Ms Nayda organised a rally at Glenelg against shark culls. It attracted almost 500 supporters including Greens MLC Mark Parnell, conservationist Rodney Fox and Food and Fisheries minister Leon Bignell.

She said she hoped to make a difference and educate people “to make the right decisions when it comes to the planet”.

Ms Nayda is in her final year of a conservation and land management diploma at Tafe SA and plans to study either biodiversity or environmental policy and management at university next year.

“I just want to make a difference in my kids’ lives, in my grandkids’ lives — I want them all to have clean air,” she said.

“I want them all to have food and clean water and all those things that I guess we take for granted.”

Ms Nayda was nominated by her mother Tracey, who said her daughter was “just incredible”.

“Everything she does, she does it with such passion and bravery,” she said.