Empowering Discussions – By Shailyn Drukis

During the World Parks Congress, I was actively involved in a variety of inspiring discussions, including some that shed light on the tremendous work that individuals are doing to connect people with parks and nature, as well as the need for intergenerational dialogues.

Last week I was invited to present a case study during the Stream 8 Intergenerational Dialogues for Protected Areas Management session. As a founder of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, I outlined the role that intergenerational dialogues have played in its establishment, continued growth, and its success as the main youth constituency at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. I found this session to be particularly inspiring because the majority of the individuals who attended were adults who were quite keen to integrate youth into their organizations and decision making processes. 

Later that afternoon I co-facilitated the ‘Empowering Young People to be Agents of Change’ session. Thirteen individuals from around the world (U.S., Australia, Vietnam, Papa New Guinea and Guinea Bissau) shared the work that they are doing in their schools and communities to connect youth to nature and parks. The room was packed, the stories being shared were inspiring, and people were so motivated and intrigued by what they heard that many of them stayed afterwards to chat with each other and the speakers (what I consider to be a huge success!).  Overall, I was left with a lot of hope for the future of parks, and the role that youth will play in the conservation of these important areas. 

Apart from the sessions that I was directly involved in, I also attended many sessions that I felt would contribute to my academic research, including workshops on landscape connectivity, capacity building, citizen science, protected area climate change adaptability, and those related to the recent Convention on Biological Diversity outcomes.  These conversations, although frustrating at times (because some people do not always recognize the spatial variability of systems and processes), were generally very intriguing, and contributed greatly to my personal research of these topics. 

I also had the opportunity to attend a couple different networking evening events, including the Canadian Delegates dinner, as well as the Mountain Stream dinner. It was at the mountain dinner that I got to meet and talk to Harvey Locke, an individual that I find incredibly inspiring (founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative). He was very interested in the research that I am doing in the Kluane National Park region, and was full of positive support and encouragement.