Please note: This video was one of a number of presentations from the webinar, and in order to allow each video to be watched individually, they all have the same 30 second introduction to provide the required context. If you have already seen this introduction in another video from the webinar, please skip to 0:31.
Read the video transcript:
The subject of the webinar today is animating the carbon cycle. It really explores the very important link between biodiversity and climate. And the goal of this webinar is to launch a new global initiative to launch nature and climate, and set the first global target for restoration and rewilding to address this accelerating climate breakdown.
And we’re going to move right now to our last presenting panelist, and that’s Melina Sakiyama from Brazil. She’s a biologist mesmerised by the diversity and interconnections within nature. I love that statement. She’s a co-founder, as many of you know, of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, and she’s coordinator of the Youth Voices Empowerment programme. For all of her incredible work at a young age, she’s out there on the front lines and her achievements earned her the very prestigious 2020 Midori Prize for biodiversity. Melina, thank you for joining us. Please speak to us. Thank you.
Can everybody hear me well? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you so much for everybody from the Wild foundation, from the Global Rewilding alliance. It’s a pleasure to be here talking with so many amazing panellists and with so much unbelievable conservation sustainability work that has been done. I’m coming from, like, the youth side of the story. So I am one of the co-founders of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, as Vance mentioned. And our network is basically like a large movement of, like, young people and youth organisations all over the globe, okay, that are like minded and they are really, really committed to a life in harmony with nature, right? And I think nowadays, like, the youth has been receiving a lot of hotspots, as we can see, like, for the climate movement with Greta Thunberg, you see that, like, young people, because they are so well connected in the sense of social media, they are out there, they are being expressive, like, especially in richer countries, right?
Because, like, young people is not just one community that is very similar. It is the diversity of people. It’s a reflect of the diversity that we find within ourselves. So they are mobilising. So we are mobilising. We have, like, our opinions are finally being heard, right? And, like, they are having demands. And I would like to talk a little bit more about this with you today in this context of, like, the social ecological crisis that we are living, right? And why we are talking in terms of socioecological, because it’s not just the climate that is collapsing. Like, it’s not just the biodiversity, although the biodiversity for now, is still a much more silent crisis, right? Because, like, traditionally the field of biodiversity conservation, nature conservation has been quite specific. It was like mostly conservationist biologists, like, or like activists, and only now this is becoming more mainstream, right?
Finally, it seems like our societies has gotten the message that biodiversity in nature underpins everything that we have in our lives, right? For many people, it underpins their religious beliefs, it underpins, like, their materials. So, like, all those, like, material resources we get from nature, but also so, like, gives us identity, right? Like so many of us, we identify ourselves, our culture, based on what we see in nature and based on what we get from nature. So we’re finally realising that with the loss of biodiversity, with the loss of species, ecosystems and, like, erosion of genetic diversity, which we would call the three levels of biodiversity, we are going to be losing much more than that.
We are going to be losing our languages, we’re going to be losing, like, our culture, our identities, right? Our well-being. And I think, like, sometimes, like, for people working at the policy levels, people working in decision making or even at the science, this more like, holistic aspect of what nature, biodiversity, all this wilderness means to us, gets lost, right? But fortunately, like, for the youth generation. And this is what I would like to share a little bit more with you today. So what we are talking about, right? Like mostly people under 30, under 35, depending on the context. And if you see, like, they are all. They were all born or raised during a period that our societies were already more or less globalised, right?
So these people, we were born in a world that was already connected, that, like, most of us, like, we grew up and, like, when Internet was already there, so the distance between our communities somehow, like, got much smaller, right? So we have friends all over the world from very early in our lives, we know what is happening. Like, I’m in Brazil at the moment, but, like, I have friends all over the world and I have been, like, working online with those friends for more than ten years already, right? So, like, it’s a different dimension and, like, for this generation that is so connected, right? So kind of like techie savvy, so communicative, so expressive, because finally, like, it’s been given space. They are being given space to express themselves, to express their views. And in many, many aspects, their opinions are being very, very valuable because of their more innovative way of, like, dealing with this whole connected world, right? However, this community is still one of the most marginalised communities in the world, right? Like, I don’t know, like, if you can see that, if you have kids or like, younger relatives that you’re close with. But the opportunities for us are much more difficult.
So, for instance, it’s much more difficult for us to secure, like a job or a house or like, you know, material security, financial security, like here in Brazil, is very, very complicated at the moment with unemployment and, like, lack of opportunities for young people. So we have a lot of young people that have degrees, but they cannot find jobs, right? So we still see that although there is so much that this generation can offer and that they have a right, it’s still the spaces where we can participate, the spaces where we can contribute are still quite limited, right? And there’s still a lot of, like, discrimination, a lot of like, tokenism, a lot of like, patronising going on, which makes it difficult for this generation of people to express themselves, right? So we are seeing this very kind of like, extreme sort of like, view and understanding of young people.
However, and this is what makes the situation even more dramatic, but perhaps more hopeful as well, is that these are the generations that will have to suffer mostly with the effects of all this socioecological crisis that we are living. So, like, they will have to overcome unemployment, inequality and all this kind of issues that are associated to the crisis, the environmental crisis that we are having. And we will also have to be the ones that will take the lead, like, in the coming ten years for sure, to find a pathway forward for the climate and biodiversity collapse. So, like, all these people are now mobilising themselves. And it’s very interesting the way we have been mobilising because it’s quite like a more like sort of flat organisation. So there is no, like leadership so much.
It’s being done through different collectives and different small groups, you know, that through Internet, social media and so on, can keep themselves coordinated, even though sometimes there’s no sort of formal structure. And I think that is the difference from previous generations. And I think there is also a lot of gap in communication, in values and so on and so on. So I think our network here is emerging as a network that is really promoting and fostering and seeking for a truly intergenerational dialogue so that all of us can kind of connect on our values and principles that we really want to, to have to see, to make this future, this just sustainable future in harmony with nature, a reality. Right?
So I think that is the main motivation of young people. They know that, like, the impact they will be suffering, you know, I mean, most of us, especially in the community. So I come from Brazil. I know that everybody here knows what is happening in my country at the moment. And like we see, for instance, the communities in the Amazon or indigenous communities elsewhere, right, that are suffering and those that are, like, losing their lives. Many cases are young people, are young mobilisers. They are trying to resist, like, the destruction that is happening, right? So I think this is what young people are trying to pursue, like, because of this more, somehow more naive, or perhaps not so jaded understanding of the crisis that we’re living like. They see the connections also between the social and the ecological aspects.
So, for instance, if you check the IPBES Global assessment report, so the Intergovernmental Panel of Biodiversity and Ecosystem services, we see that the big drivers of biodiversity loss are the same as the climate collapse and are the same for this social inequality, which is exactly like the kind of values, priorities that our economic systems are fostering and the sort of, like, existing power structures, asymmetries and inequalities that we are facing. So I think for young people, the biggest priority here is that, yes, at the centre of our society, there must be sustainability, but, like, at the centre of sustainability, there should be equity and rights and justice.
Otherwise, everything that we’re doing in terms of conservation, in terms of restoration, in terms of rewilding, like, it’s going to be a lost. So I just wanted to kind of, like, give this shout out about what is passing, what is the feeling and the heartbeat of the youth movement around. And I’ll be very happy to connect with you and try to build up even more this huge movement for biodiversity and nature. Thank you so much.
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