Celebrating a Youth Day on the occasion of the International Day of Forests and International Day for Biological Diversity 2015

In the context of the International Day of Forests and the International day for Biological Diversity 2015, BIOCLIME supported the event “Environmetal Education and Adventure in the Forest” which was held as in Punti Kayu Palembang on 23. April as a combination of the two international events under the name of International Forest and World Biodiversity Day 2015.

The activity involved more than 350 participants, among them school children, teachers, boy scouts, NGOs, environmental workers and government institutions.

The participants took part in several activities, such as planting trees, a painting competition under the theme of forest and biodiversity, and also joint excursions into nature.

During the joint excursion participants benefited from environmental training provided by some of BIOCLIME’s partners, namely Dinas Kehutanan (Forestry Service), BKSDA/Natural Resource Conservation Agency, Boy Scout, Zoological Society of London (ZSL). In the future this will become an annual event for Forestry Services in South Sumatra to enhance the young people’s awareness towards the environment, and encourage them to take part in future nature/forest-related activities.

BIOCLIME supports the Forestry Service as well as the Education Service of South Sumatra to further conduct activities involving young people and pupils from Elementary School.

Children and young people represent more than half of the world’s population. In order to encourage future generations to appreciate ecosystem services it is essential to bring the youth closer to nature by means of education. Studies show that most children have a great appreciation for nature. However, a considerable part of the children surveyed have not yet had personal experience with forests and show poor understanding of ecological coherences and how sustainable exploitation and conservation of natural environment can co-exist

For further reading: Children and Nature : Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations, MIT Press, edited by  Peter H. Kahn Jr., and Stephen R Kellert.