Youth Delegates meet with Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dan Ashe. Credit: Tom Llaurado / USFWS
I could probably spend a long time reflecting on the entire week I spent, but instead I’ll just give some thoughts on one of the better highlights from the youth delegate group. We had the wonderful opportunity of having Director Dan Ashe sit down with us on Thursday night. I think I speak for the whole group when I say how cool it was to have him take 45 minutes out of his hectic schedule to answer some of our questions and listen to some of our ideas (and this was just one of the many great experiences the Youth Engagement Team set up for us. Thank you guys!).
During that session I was reminded of how many great ideas my peers are able to come up with when given the chance to speak. We talked at length about the critical need to engage youth, told individual stories of our varying Refuge experiences, advocated for working with partner organizations such as the ones we were a part of, explained the urgency to emotionally connect with people and proposed ways to bring the Refuge concept into cities. In making a case for connecting people to nature through technology, Ryan pointed out that just because we don’t go to refuges, doesn’t mean we don’t care or can’t care about them. When Dan asked us if we felt optimistic about the future of conservation, Austin’s opinion was that yes, it might be too late to stop the full effects of climate change, but who cares? We don’t have time to be negative. On the other hand, Keean responded with a different angle, saying even though we have to be optimistic about people changing, we also have to assume we have to bring people on board with us. It is our opportunity. Thank you for listening Dan Ashe.
So, I guess this is my call to action for the Service: The next generation has things to say. Things that are audacious, innovative, full of passion. Yes, sometimes things that are amateur. Things that seem impractical. Things that are critical. Our voices need to be heard. Conservation will only get so far without a new dialogue that includes us. We hear all the time about how great leaders need to challenge the norm. Well, I would also say that great communities need to reflect that in order to reach their full potential. The whole point of this conference was to talk about conservation in the next generation. Let’s do that in every aspect. It was a big step for the Service to invite some youth delegates to this event and should be applauded! But it’s just a start.
Idea #967: Create working groups of youth who have dialogues about different conservation issues. Connect those up with dialogues happening within the Service. Dan Ashe spoke of connecting past traditions with bold new ideas.
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Nice call to action, Marco! I think your blog also demonstrates another important point about our youth. We tend to refer to youth as “future” leaders, but I would argue that some of them are already leaders within their own organizations and communities. The youth delegates that we invited to the conference, for example, were nominated by our partners largely because they already demonstrated outstanding leadership. As an agency, we need to figure out how to recruit this young talent, or otherwise access their skills through our partnerships. Marco, I look forward to the creation of youth working groups, and I also look forward to hearing your continued voice in Conserving the Future of our wildlife refuges.
I was really impressed with the “younger” Conference folks that were helping us “older” folks learn how to use Twitter and Facebook. I got to speak with several of them, and its exciting to see such passion for National Wildlife Refuges coming through the ranks!