Severn Cullis-Suzuki was born on November 30, 1979. She is a Canadian environmental activist and writer who has given speeches worldwide about environmental issues. She encourages people to think about what is important to them, make choices that help the future, and be responsible for their own actions. She is the daughter of David Suzuki, a Canadian environmentalist.

Biography

Severn Cullis-Suzuki was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her mother is Tara Cullis, a writer. Her father is David Suzuki, a geneticist and environmental activist who is a third-generation Japanese Canadian. While attending Lord Tennyson Elementary School in a French Immersion program, she started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO) at age 9. ECO is a group of children who work to learn about and teach other children about environmental issues. In 1992, at age 12, Cullis-Suzuki raised money with ECO members to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Along with friends Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttie, and Morgan Geisler, she spoke about environmental issues from the perspective of young people at the summit. Her speech was praised by the delegates. A video of her speech later became very popular online and is known as "The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes."

In 1993, she was honored by the United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour. In the same year, Doubleday published her book Tell the World, a 32-page guide for families on how to take action for the environment.

Cullis-Suzuki graduated from Yale University in 2002 with a B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology. After college, she spent two years traveling. She co-hosted Suzuki's Nature Quest, a children's television show that aired on Discovery Kids in 2002.

In early 2002, she helped start an online think tank called The Skyfish Project. As a member of Kofi Annan's Special Advisory Panel, she and Skyfish Project members introduced a pledge called the "Recognition of Responsibility" at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August 2002. The Skyfish Project ended in 2004 as Cullis-Suzuki returned to school. She joined a graduate program at the University of Victoria to study ethnobotany with Nancy Turner, completing her studies in 2007.

Cullis-Suzuki is the main subject of the documentary film Severn, the Voice of Our Children, directed by Jean-Paul Jaud and released in France on November 10, 2010. She is also a member of the Earth Charter International Council.

Personal life

In 2008, Cullis-Suzuki married her husband. She lived with him and their two sons in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, until August 2021. In September 2021, she moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to begin her new job as the Executive Director of the David Suzuki Foundation. She is related to two NHL players, Nick Suzuki and Ryan Suzuki.

Cultural tributes

In 2009, French guitarist MattRach and his band used parts of her 1992 speech in their song "Human Bullshit." In 2010, French DJ Laurent Wolf used her 1992 speech to create a song called "2012 – Not The End Of The World." In 2016, NINSKEEN used part of her speech in the title "Make Your Actions Reflect Your Words." In 2017, the French group Grands Boulevards used an excerpt from her speech in the track "Children of Light 8." In 2017, the French group Way For Nothing used her speech in the title "Consciousness." In 2016 and 2018, the French musician Owen Le Guen used parts of her speech in the tracks "Before Our Eyes" and "They Exist." In 2018, a few lines of her speech can be heard in the vertical version of Alan Walker's music video for "Different World." In 2018, Louise Tilleke painted a portrait of Severn Cullis-Suzuki, which she displayed in her Parisian exhibition titled "Ask not the Earth…" In 2020, more than 20 animation directors, led by Simone Giampaolo, turned her speech into a short film called "Only a Child," which they describe as "a visual poem." The film won the Ray Harryhausen Award for best animated short film. In 2022, for the thirtieth anniversary, the artist Selfish Patterns used parts of the speech in the track "1992."