Down the yellow brick road : youth engagement and intergenerational equity at the Global Landscapes Forum

Abstract: This paper examines youth engagement within the Global Landscapes Forum, a conference that took place in Paris, December 2015, and its contribution towards moving intergenerational equity forward. Youth are considered one of the main stakeholders when it comes to decision-making in long-term environmental issues as they are part of the current generation that are likely to face the implications of current decisions made. As such, using youth engagement to pave the way forward towards intergenerational equity is imperative to ensure sustainable development. The Global Landscapes Forum, is a large conference that brought together more than 3000 stakeholders from different backgrounds and that actively sought to engage youth through the Youth in Landscapes Initiative. Furthermore, it provided them with a unique event to showcase youth innovation and ingenuity. The research that took place as part of this paper was done through action research where I was given the chance to not only be part of the monitoring and evaluation team of the Youth in Landscapes Initiative but also to take part and create solutions for the land-use challenges that we were given. This gave me the chance to interact as a member of the 50 youth participants and to gain insight into how engaged they are and what barriers affect youth engagement. After a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the factors required for youth engagement (level of awareness, access to resources, networking and capacity building, and motivation to engage others), it was concluded that the youth participants are engaged but lack access to resources to further their engagement. Another barrier that was also apparent is this notion of traditional legitimacy prompting a perceived lack of experience by the participants themselves or by experts. In order for the Global Landscapes Forum and similar scientific conferences to move towards meaningful youth engagement and intergenerational equity, a set of recommendations has been given for implementation which included more funding, partnerships, and opportunities for youth researchers to be on panels and sessions thereby straying away from the norms of the scientific authority and the legitimacy it claims.