Celebrating Earth Day 2020
I was lucky enough to represent WAGGGS at the Global Youth Biodiversity Forum last year, a network that brings together young people from all over the world with one common goal: to prevent and stop loss of biodiversity on our planet.
For me, it's more important than ever that young people are involved in the climate action conversation: the choices that we make today at all levels will have an impact on our future and on the world that we will grow up in. Every individual and association involved in this network believes in speaking out to decision-makers and making a change to the current system that is damaging the environment!
During these few days spent at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, I presented the ways in which WAGGGS, our Member Organisations, and Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world engage around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the protection of our global biodiversity. As Scouts, we learn to live in nature, to get to know the spaces around us by engaging in projects to protect our ecosystem, to protect animals and to fight against pollution.
I met some truly inspiring people who, like us, push for tolerance, solidarity and - importantly - recognise the views of women and young people in our fight for climate action. Like us, these associations are acting for SDGs - particularly SDG 14 and 15 (life below water and on land) and SDG 13 (climate action) - but at different levels, from community action to international advocacy.
I was proud to represent our Movement and bring my contribution to the table, both by encouraging our members to engage even further in protecting global biodiversity and by ensuring that our voice is represented.
This Earth Day, I'm thrilled to share this experience with other Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, knowing that the whole of WAGGGS continues to act so that one day we will see a world more respectful of the environment.
We can all act to make our actions heard, at an individual and community level, by taking care of the ecosystem around us. There are 1001 ways to reduce pollution in the air or water, to limit our own waste, to commit to actions that save our natural reserves, to fight to prevent deforestation and the loss of our agricultural spaces...
So now, it's over to you!
Words by Solène Valette (translated from French)
About the author
Solène is a Girl Scout from Scouts et Guides de France and an advocate for global climate action and biodiversity.