The climate crisis is only accelerating, and governments all over the world have been clamping down harder than ever on environmental activists. But a new front in the battle for climate justice has opened in Argentina, where a renegade gang of parrots are taking revenge on humankind.

After their natural habitat was destroyed by deforestation, thousands of parrots have invaded Hilario Ascasubi, a small town in the east of Argentina. As biologist Daiana Lera told The Guardian, “The hillsides are disappearing, and this is causing them to come closer to the cities to find food, shelter and water.”

The parrots have been chewing through power lines and causing outages,  screeching incessantly, and shitting everywhere. Their cause is clearly a righteous one, but have they gone too far? Are they freedom fighters… or fanatics? To find out, I took an overnight plane to Argentina and travelled deep into the jungle to interview their leader, Pedro the Parrot. What he had to say shocked me to my core. 

No one takes the climate crisis more seriously than me, and I sympathise with what you’ve been through. But do you think that this kind of immature tantrum-throwing is the best way of winning people over to your cause? Sabotaging power lines, screeching all the time and shitting on people – seriously?  

Pedro the Parrot: Remember that it was mankind who brought violence to us, and not the other way around. We were living peacefully in our forest, troubling no one, until the bulldozers came. We do not screech out of vengeance, but because that is what parrots do – we are simply trying to live under conditions which have been made impossible. 

As for sabotaging the power lines, yes, that is a more calculated operation, but it is not a spiteful one: we believe that unless humans are confronted with the consequences of their actions, the world is hurtling towards irreversible catastrophe. It is easy for you to judge us, from the vantage point of your pampered, cosseted life in the imperial core, but if your home was destroyed, perhaps you would be screeching and shitting on people too. 

But none of that is an excuse for breaking the law. Rules exist for a reason and we can’t just pick and choose which ones apply to us. Did you even try to affect change through legitimate means, perhaps by organising at a grassroots level, having honest conversations and holding yourselves accountable?

Pedro the Parrot: When our forest was first threatened, we wrote letters of complaint to the companies responsible; we launched an online petition; I even started a TikTok account in the desperate hope that someone, anyone, would pay attention. Do you know what happened? Nothing. In an attention economy based on novelty, how could I compete with Moo Deng or Pesto the Penguin? 

Forests get razed all the time; parrots get displaced. If people like you are forced to think about it, you might deem it unfortunate or regrettable, but it’s just the way things go. We reject that complacency. And we are here to wake you from your slumber. 

If your home was destroyed, perhaps you would be screeching and shitting on people too – Pedro The Parrot

I resent the implication that I’m in a “slumber”. You don't know anything about me. I only use ethically sourced skincare products. I’ve posted a number of highly educational infographics about the climate crisis on my Instagram story. I didn’t vote at the last election but if I had done, I would have voted for the Green Party.  But OK… I guess my problem is that you’re not attacking the CEOs responsible, nor are you addressing the structural causes of deforestation. You’re just making life harder for ordinary people who haven’t done anything wrong. 

Pedro the Parrot: You mean, the people who find the idea of living alongside us so intolerable that they are even now blasting us with loud noises and laser beams in an effort to drive us out? The people who rest on wooden furniture and entertain themselves with books produced from the detritus of our destroyed and stolen homes? There may be degrees of complicity yes, but no human is innocent – and none shall be spared.

What, like, not even me…?

Pedro the Parrot: Especially not you.

Yikes!

*At this point in the interview, Pedro flies into my face and gauges my eyes with his talons*