Voices of Youth in Conservation

This page centers around means of increasing youth engagement in conservation by addressing challenges, providing opportunities and instilling a sense of empowerment and ability to solve problems collaboratively. With the goal of determining the most advantageous learning conditions for cultivating a conservation ethic and civic capacity in today’s youth to engage in, contribute to and/or drive socio-ecological change, panelists shared perspectives, lessons learned and emergent ideas from different experiential learning initiatives which share a common aim of connecting children/youth with nature, community and change behaviour.

What approaches to experiential learning can support efforts to engage a much larger and diverse population of youth in conservation and community-oriented change? How do we amplify youth voices and offer sustained support of their ideas and actions? To answer these questions, a conversation was held on motivations, values and strategies that young people in the conservation sector (and outside) use to amplify their voice and affect change.

The desired result of increasing youth engagement in environmental stewardship is to hear a variety of creative emergent ideas and activation strategies which could be beneficial to local community conservation, and to foster a lifelong conservation ethic in recognition of the fact that today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders.

Key Themes:

Engagement, Education & Empowerment, Factors of Success in Community Conservation, Climate & Environmental Changes

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