The "Youth Priorities and Recommendations" recognise and support youth, not only as beneficiaries and target groups, but also as partners, collaborators, initiators, implementers, leaders and decision-makers
As the international community is getting ready for crucial talks at the Climate COP 29 to be held in Baku in November, the stakes could not be higher for highly climate- vulnerable nations like Nepal. Yet the attention of the country should also be on another key global summit, the Biodiversity COP 16 that the city of Cali in Colombia will host just a few days before the events in Azerbaijan.
An initiative led by students and young professionals with both passion and expertise on biodiversity preservation is attempting to engage Singha Durbar in ensuring that Nepal is well prepared for the discussions in Colombia. Media and policy makers alike tend to focus on climate change, but they neglect the linkages between it and biodiversity loss. They also forget that preserving and maintaining healthy ecosystems, also through nature-based solutions, are vital in the fight against climate warming to succeed.
But it is also essential to talk about biodiversity preservation not just in terms of its contributions to tackle climate change. For example, the blossoming of the country's ecosystems is also paramount in facing off climate pollution.
The national branch of an international outfit, the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, GYBN- Nepal, is trying to remedy this situation. At the beginning of August, the group, led by Shreya Adhikari, an environmental science enthusiast together with a group of associates, including Priyanka Pandey, herself an expert on biodiversity, organised a key stakeholder engagement. The outcome of the exercise was an official document entitled "Youth Priorities and recommendations for the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP)".
The NBSAP is the "master plan" that parties, signatory to the International Convention on Biodiversity, a global binding treaty of which Nepal is a member, must periodically submit and update. It must be now aligned to the Kunming-Montreal Framework, a global plan that should be discussed and promoted in much bigger ways than what is actually happening.
The "Youth Priorities and Recommendations" is a bold and ambitious document, and this is exactly how it should be. You realise its level of depth and aspiration right at the beginning when it states that the main goal of the document is to "recognise and support youth, not only as beneficiaries and target groups, but also as partners, collaborators, initiators, implementers, leaders and decision-makers".
In relation to target "Plan and Manage All Areas to Reduce Biodiversity Loss", itself like the others, aligned to the Kunming-Montreal Framework, the document demands to "integrate youths and community groups as major stakeholders during the preparation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of species-specific conservation plans".
There is even a whole target about giving real power to young people by "ensuring Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice and Information Related to Biodiversity for all; establishing youth representation in all biodiversity-related decision-making bodies at local, national, and international levels, including youth councils, advisory boards, and seats in key environmental meetings and committees".
These are profoundly bold, progressive propositions because young people must be really allowed to exercise their rights and be part of a policy making system that, by design, excludes them. Yet the "Youth Priorities and Recommendations" do not only ask for mainstreaming youths in the decision making. It is also about enhancing existing accountability mechanisms by ensuring that Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are properly conducted by involving and engaging local people, especially indigenous communities.
As the Kunming-Montreal Framework demands the conservation of 30 per cent of land, waters and seas, the document also calls for "implementing strict regulations for businesses, making biological environmental conditions a priority during Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA)".
On this regard, local people, especially indigenous communities, unequivocally have rights and powers. "Ensure transparent and clear communication between local and indigenous communities if protected areas and buffer zones need to be expanded. Include youth from the same community to bridge the communication gap between Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) and stakeholders ensuring their perspectives and rights are respected".
This is a real issue at core of the emerging conversation on the so-called field of Business and Human Rights whose cornerstones are the concept of "Free, Prior Informed Consent" that calls not only for meaningful engagement with indigenous and other locals but also about accepting the fact that IPLCs have the power to say "no".
There are also other crucial elements to be upheld like Human Rights Due Diligence throughout the whole process related to new infrastructures, such as resorts, roads or hydropower projects.
Interestingly and certainly not secondary, there is also a call for "revising school and college curriculum to include relevant skills, focusing on local knowledge reducing the intergenerational gap and making youth globally informed".
If we want to go to the bottom of the issues, it is of outmost importance that young people are educated and made aware on the interlinkages between sustainable development and biodiversity and climate action.
Nepal counts on many positive success stories in terms of community led forestry preservation programs but it is not only a rosy picture. Moreover, the State recently approved a worrying amendment to the 1973 National
Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act that would make it much easier for businesses to encroach on protected areas.
That's why "Youth Priorities and Recommendations", a real call for action that unfairly did not get much attention, should be taken really seriously and that's why the work of GYBN-Nepal must be supported.