As the global climate crisis continues to intensify, the involvement and active participation of youth is more important than ever. Across North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, youth-led movements and initiatives are showing the world that age is not a limitation when it comes to protecting the environment.
In Asia, the Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC), founded by the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, is a key example of a successful youth-led forest protection initiative. In Vietnam, young people are using new digital mapping tools to track deforestation and alert RECOFTC and other organizations of illegal logging.
Since its founding in 1987, RECOFTC has supported over 1,900 community forestry groups in Thailand in formalizing their forest rights, 8,500 communities in managing their forests, and just in 2020 trained 2,229 women and men on community forestry and sustainable development.
Young people can help protect forests by: reducing paper and wood consumption; organizing tree planting drives; promoting school-wide sustainability; educating others through social media and school clubs; and pushing for policies that protect old-growth forests, ban deforestation, or invest in conservation initiatives.