The EUROPARC Youth Council 2024 – 2025 Cohort is made up of 9 Individiuals. 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 full 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
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 from the dutch Youth+ network and the international Youth Councilers. 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.
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. Man and Biosphere Youth Conference
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
Meet the 2023-2025 Youth Council
All 9 members of the EUROPARC Youth Council 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.