Today, young adults are proving that you don't have to be older to be more powerful. According to an organization called RECOFTC (Regional Community Forestry Training Centre), young people have the most potential to be strong advocates for healthy, flourishing change.
The Youth Climate Save movement encourages plant-based living and teaches children about how deforestation is linked to animal life and biodiversity loss. It was founded by Genesis Butler, a teen girl who found herself passionate about how she could change the Earth.
In Tanzania, youth-led forest clubs are teaching sustainable farming and forest protection in schools. In Indonesia, students use social media to document illegal logging therefore pressuring the government to change their own actions.
Organizations like Roots & Shoots, founded by the well-known primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, give students tools to create local projects to create some sort of impact. In Kenya and India, there are school-led tree planting drives which have restored hundreds of acres of land. In the Philippines, youth have participated in "adopt-a-tree" programs.
Through social media, activists are teaching many people the effects of deforestation, exposing high-end environmental violations, and raising funds for tree planting ideas. Digital petitions, infographics and youth-run accounts are helping action in ways that traditional movements never could.