The EUROPARC Youth Council 2024 – 2025 Cohort is made up of 9 Individuals. Scroll down to see what they are up to and for a bio of each individual.
Strategy for Youth Voices in the EUROPARC 2030 Strategy
The first three months consisted of getting to know each other, learning about EUROPARC, and analysing how to integrate the Youth Voice across the work of the network. To do this, the EUROPARC 2030 Strategy was dissected and a set of youth objectives identified for each goal. Various target audiences and events were matched to each objective to bring a clear vision of what each event could achieve. From then on, the Youth Council divided into subgroups to work on those events and activities.
Read the May report here! Read the September report here!
EUROPARC Youth Dialogues
Engaging with the Youth community, which comprise of young professionals working in Protected Areas as well as the Junior Ranger and Youth+ young stakeholders involved in Protected Areas, is one of the main aims of the Youth Council. To kickstart this process and get a broad feel for the priority points, a short questionnaire was created basing thematic questions upon themes from the EUROPARC Youth Manifesto (created in 2018 and still deemed relevant).
Engagement with the EUROPARC Youth community
The Youth Council would also like to target the broader community by making content on social media to raise awareness and support for Protected Areas. This resulted in an increasing amount of content and takeovers on Instagram.
So far content was created for:
- International Forest Day
- World Water Day
- European Day of Parks
- Vote for Nature in the EU Elections
- EUROPARC Atlantic Isles Conference
- International Day of Biosphere Reserves
2024 Youth+ Camp
With only 4 months of planning and a tiny budget, two thirds of the Youth Council were able to meet in person at the EUROPARC Youth+ Camp which was held in the Netherlands, coordinated together between representatives from the Youth Council and Thea Peters from IVN. It was a small camp with 16 participants mostly from the dutch Youth+ network and the international Youth Council members. The exchange and networking was very fruitful and both groups had a chance to build up their plans for the coming year. The Youth Council also showcased the event on the EUROPARC Youth Instagram account and can be reviewed under highlights.
Podcast Episode
For the European Youth in Parks Day, one of the top responses to the Youth Dialogue was chosen as the theme. The Youth Council then interviewed two projects highlighting sustainable transport in Protected Areas. For an accessible transcript and more go to our library!
Representing the voices of young people
The members of the Youth Council have been integrated into the EUROPARC network and have assisted internally with:
- European Charter for Sustainable Tourism Meeting: advising on how to make the event youth friendly
- Healthy People Healthy Parks Commission: attending meetings and sharing their thoughts
- European Youth in Parks Day: interviewing guests for the EUROPARC Podcast “Voices from the Parks”
- Invited to attend section meetings and giving youth input
They have also had opportunities to engage as representatives outside of the network.
1. European Man and Biosphere Youth Conference (EuroMAB)
Two members of the EUROPARC Youth Council, Marla Schulz (DE) and Hermione Pocock (UK) attended the EuroMAB Conference in the Elbe River Landscape Biosphere Reserve together with EUROPARC’s Youth Representative, Leonardo Cerno (IT). The youth conference held the day before the official was supported by the work of the Jugendnetzwerk Biosphäre which is a national group to connect young people in Germany actively working with UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and is part of the EUROPARC Youth+ Network. The event was very successful with the young people networking and building a strong EuroMAB Youth Network to drive sustainable change and make an impact in their communities as well as learning and improving skills such as storytelling to inspire others.
2. Young LEADER Forum
“On 11-13 June 2024, around 200 people gathered in Vierumäki for the Young LEADER Forum organised by the EU CAP Network in close cooperation with the Finnish National Network. Motivated young people from rural areas shared their ideas, allowing the collection of youth perspectives on LEADER.
I went to Finland with a somewhat active role: talking about youth empowerment in the EUROPARC Network. Other than that, I was glad to share my experience during the different workshops. I was happy to see interest in the work EUROPARC does, both in general and at the youth level.
Even if the event was short, I left with new connections, different perspectives and a glimpse of what Finland has to offer.”
– Alberto Madrassi, EUROPARC Youth Council
3. XIII European Charter for Sustainable Tourism Network Meeting
Patrick McConigley attended the ECST Meeting in Ireland in October, contributing to discussions on sustainable tourist management and creating safe spaces for young people, not just physically but also psychologically.
4. Fitter for the Future – EUROPARC Atlantic Isles Conference
Two sections, the Low Countries (The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) and the Atlantic Isles (UK and Ireland), paired up to run a traveling event with workshops in the Haarlem (NL) and a conference in Sheffield (UK).
The young people from North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales National Park teamed up to present the situation of young people living and working in and around the Protected Areas in England. Their work on youth advocacy is strongly tied to the EUROPARC Youth Manifesto which calls for action to improve the living, learning and working environment for young people in and around Protected Areas. Watch their full presentation below!
5. IPBES Youth Workshop
EUROPARC nominated two of our Youth Council members to represent the views of young people in the IPBES Youth workshop held in Namibia on the 6 – 9th of December. Krišs Atvars Saberovs, who has been very active in the EUROPARC Junior Ranger Programme and is active in the Youth+ Latvia group was selected to represent the views of the Central and Eastern European youth.
“From the 6th to the 9th of december IPBES held a youth workshop in Windhoek, Namibia, in which I participated in. The workshop brought together youth from 25 different countries all over the world. The workshops main goals were to increase communication between youth and see what the perfect future between people and nature should look like. A step to get to these futures was to talk about what are today’s problems and how we should try to fix them to achieve what we set out for the next 100 to 200 years.
During the workshop I was able to talk with a lot of like minded people from different countries and organisations making new connections and hopefully some of them will turn into very noteworthy collaborations” – Krišs Atvars Saberovs (Latvia)
Meet the 2023-2025 Youth Council
All 10 members of the EUROPARC Youth Council and the EUROPARC Youth Representative are young Europeans between the ages of 18 – 30, who are active in Protected Areas as volunteers, youth stakeholders or young professionals. They were each endorsed by a EUROPARC member or section and underwent a rigorous selection process which was determined through an open consultation with the EUROPARC youth community. They are:
Robert Cain (the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland) has unfortunately had to step down from his position in the EUROPARC Youth Council due to personal reasons.