The Republic of Suriname is situated on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America and has the unique distinction of being designated by the World Bank as the most forested country in the world, with almost 93% of its land area being covered by the lush Amazon forests. A Green Hope team, comprising of members from Dubai, Oman and Canada, were invited by the Cabinet of the President of the Republic of Suriname to support the involvement of Surinamese youth in building a roadmap for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The team was also asked to draw international attention to support the position of Suriname as the most forested country in the world.

Hope’s mission was to support Suriname by creating awareness amongst the local youth by using Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as a transformative tool to educate and empower them so that they could take local actions in mitigating the impacts of climate change and protect their rich natural heritage for future generations.

After months of preparation and coordination, the Green Hope team flew in from Dubai, Oman, and Canada converging on Paramaribo, Suriname’s picturesque capital city on 3rd July. The delegation had the privilege of accompanying His Excellency Mr. Winston G. Lackin, Presidential Advisor - Republic of Suriname and its Ambassador in charge of Environment on the flight from Amsterdam to Suriname and was given a grand reception at Paramaribo airport on arrival.

The Suriname cabinet ministers with Green Hope. Photo Credits: Green Hope

Over the next 12 days, the Green Hope team undertook one of their most impactful journeys of ESD till date through which they reached out to thousands of civil society stakeholders in Suriname. This journey of change began with a  high-level breakfast meeting with the ministers of the Suriname cabinet which included H.E. Winston Lackin, Ambassador in Charge of the Environment/Presidential Advisor, the Hon. Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, Speaker of the House, Melvin Bouva, Vice Speaker of the House, H.E. Lillian Ferrier, Minister of Education, Science and Culture & H.E. Lalinie Gopal, Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs to discuss and roll out the engagement activities for the Green Hope delegation.

Thereafter, the Green Hope team in partnership with the Youth Parliament of Suriname conducted an impactful event titled “Youth Awareness Conference for a Sustainable Suriname” which was attended by over 350 youth, 15 to 18 years old, from across schools in the country. The objective was to spread awareness about Suriname’s unique position as the only country in the world with 93% forest cover and the important role of the country’s children and youth in taking care of their environment for future generations.

"Maroon" children planted trees in one of Hope's actions in Suriname. Photo Credits: Green Hope

Over the next two days, Green Hope conducted two more “Environment Academies” each of which was attended by over 300 children in the age group of 8 to 15 years. Green Hope believes in using creative modes of communication to convey the themes of sustainable development and these workshops were titled “Creative Art & Music Workshop for a Sustainable Suriname.” Sustainability is a difficult concept for children to understand and therefore Green Hope uses art, music, dance, drama, and sport to engage and educate young children creatively. The main vehicles of communication at these workshops were art and music through which the participants expressed their solutions and ideas for implementing the 17 sustainable development goals for their country. The outputs were truly amazing and showed the importance of harnessing the passion and creativity of young people in driving change.

Green Hope believes that engaging neglected and marginalized sections of civil society holds the key to the realization of the United Nations mandate of “leave no one behind” and focusses its efforts to reaching out and empowering them. The team visited an orphanage, home to mainly girls some as young as five years. The team conducted an environmental workshop for them, spreading awareness about the impacts of climate change and adopting sustainable lifestyles. The enthusiasm of the children was truly heartening, and they pledged to stop using plastic and keep their surroundings clean and recycle waste thereby vindicating Green Hope’s belief that sustainable development is a “bottom-up” process and the  goals can be achieved only if every member of civil society, especially those who are marginalized are engaged. 

A workshop with "Maroon" tribe school. Photo Credits: Green Hope

Thereafter, the Green Hope team conducted a similar workshop for marginalized children belonging to the indigenous “Maroon” tribes of the Amazon. The Green Hope team also traveled into the Amazon rainforest and engaged with children of the local tribes, educating them about the importance of not taking their forests for granted and to adopt simple, sustainable concepts of recycling, waste reduction, tree planting and avoid plastic usage. Green Hope members also planted Moringa and Neem trees with Mr. Winston G. Lackin, Presidential Advisor - Republic of Suriname and its Ambassador in charge of Environment and the students of the children.

Climate change has an extraordinary impact on Suriname's vast mangrove ecosystem. Photo Credits: Green Hope

Mangrove conservation and saving endangered sea turtles have been Green Hope’s focus areas for several years and was one of their areas during this trip as well. Suriname has a vast mangrove ecosystem which too is affected by the impacts of climate change and urban pollution, and then Green Hope spent a day at the mangrove rehabilitation project team at Weg Near Zee, led by eminent mangrove conservation expert Professor Sieuwnath Naipal. Green Hope members planted scores of mangroves as a part of the conservation process. In coordination with the “Green Heritage Fund Suriname,” they conducted a beach cleanup in Braamspunt and thereafter engaged with local conservation experts working on sea turtle conservation.

The team also planted a Greenheart tree with the H.E. Lalinie Gopal, Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs and sealed the partnership with Suriname to mitigate climate change.

The Green Hope team also undertook a field trip to a sanctuary managed by Green Heritage Fund in the Amazon rainforest and learned about the inspiration conservation efforts to save endangered species such as sloths and river dolphins.

The Green Hope team concluded its visit by presenting an outcome document to the H.E. Winston Lackin, Ambassador in Charge of the Environment/Presidential Advisor. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Youth Parliament to establish a Green Hope chapter in Suriname to implement the outcome document and create an international partnership which would work to conserve Suriname’s rich natural biodiversity.

Climate change is the harshest reality of our times, and it is regrettable that some people still shrug it off as a myth. On the other hand, this visit to Suriname was an eye-opener on how a small nation was combining economic progress with natural conservation efforts to protect its forest cover. Green Hope was indeed privileged that they were chosen as ambassadors to engage the local youth in conveying the importance of protecting their rich biodiversity for generations to come. Green Hope will now work to share Suriname’s conservation efforts globally and urge other nations to pledge to increase their forest cover.

The second edition of the Youth Solutions Report, which identifies 50 youth-led projects that aim to solve the world’s toughest issues, will be released on July 16 in New York during a launch event at the headquarters of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The report’s solutions, which come from 61 countries and operate across all continents and regions, deal with crucial sustainable development issues, including clean energy, education, digitalization, e-participation, access to healthcare, ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, and waste.

Like its 2017 predecessor, this year’s Youth Solutions Report provides these initiatives with a powerful platform to secure funding, build capacity, communicate experiences, and scale efforts. In addition, the 2018 edition includes in-depth analysis of the multiple challenges facing youth-led innovation for the SDGs and proposes a set of concrete recommendations for all stakeholders that can help create more integrated ecosystems of support for young change makers.

"The future belongs to the young, who are increasingly providing imaginative solutions to push the Sustainable Development Goals agenda forward, helping to solve the greatest challenges our world faces. Initiatives such as SDSN Youth and its Youth Solutions Report are confirming how important youth-focused programmes are in supporting the ideas and energy coming from the next generation."

Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever and member of the SDSN Leadership Council

On July 16, the launch event of the Youth Solutions Report will be hosted by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and will be live-streamed online at 2:00 pm EDT at www.youthsolutions.report. The list of speakers is available on Eventbrite, where it is possible to register to attend the event in person.

"The Youth Solutions Report is a great platform to showcase the capacity of young women and men for creativity and innovation. Taken together, the brilliant solutions featured in the Report contain a call to future action, an invitation to trust youth as front-runners both in the present and in the future. We need to provide young people with tools and opportunities so that they can – and they will – come up with their own solutions to address problems that arise in their environment."

Forest Whitaker, UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation and Founder and CEO of the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, said that young people are doers whose talent to spark positive change is yet to be fully recognized.

Siamak Sam Loni, Global Coordinator of SDSN Youth, added that while young people are already contributing to the implementation of the SDGs, they still face common challenges that prevent them from realizing the full potential, including the lack of visibility, limited access to finance, and the lack of training and technical support. “The 2018 Youth Solutions Report will help investors, donors, and supporters better understand the multi-faceted role of young people in sustainable development and give them additional opportunities to showcase and scale their work” concluded Mr. Loni.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was launched at UN Headquarters in September 2015 and adopted by all 193 UN member states. The SDGs, which are relevant to all countries, aim to achieve social inclusion, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability for all people.

SDSN Youth is the youth initiative of SDSN, focused on empowering youth globally to create sustainable development solutions. SDSN Youth educates young people about the challenges of sustainable development and creates opportunities for them to use their creativity and knowledge to pioneer innovative solutions for the SDGs. SDSN Youth creates platforms for young people to connect, collaborate, and integrate their ideas and perspectives within the public policy field.

For more information on the Youth Solutions Report, visit: www.youthsolutions.report
For media enquiries and interview requests, please contact: solutions@sdsnyouth.org

Conserving the global commons can mean grappling with complex issues, studying the science underlying them, and making far-reaching commitments. But it can also involve measuring crabs in a hot village square.

At the end of June, delegates to the Sixth Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly in Da Nang, Viet Nam, did both. After two days of intensive meetings, involving heads of government, ministers, and top scientists and businessmen, a group of them headed off to the nearby Cham Islands to witness conservation, literally, at ground level.

[video:https://vimeo.com/278605558]

The islands are home to a community-led initiative which has succeeded in saving their remarkable land crabs (Gecarcoidea Ialandii), a species that lives in caves in the islands' damp forests and only goes to the coast to lay its eggs in hollows in the rocks filled with seawater.

The initiative was made possible by the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. So far it has provided over $580 million to more than 21,500 projects around the world in grants of just $50,000 or less.

Taken together, the grants - which are given directly to community-based organizations and civil society organizations - have so far supported 8.41 million hectares of protected areas, conserved 1,803 significant species, brought 900,000 hectares of land under practices that counter its degradation, and placed 32,000 hectares of marine and coastal areas under sustainable management.           

Yoko Watanabe, Global Manager of the programme, says “it provides finance as well as technical expertise and really empowers local communities to be agents of change in addressing environment and livelihood issues. Small grants, but big impacts – that's what we are!”

She calls the land crab project – on the eight small Cham Islands, totaling just 15 sq km – “a very innovative initiative by the local community.”

The islands are set in a rich marine reserve – host to 277 species of coral, 270 of fish, and 97 of mollusk – but less than a decade ago the large black-backed crabs were in sharp decline, overharvested as delicacies for visiting tourists.

Back in 2009, the authorities suspended catching and selling the crabs, but without success. They continued to be caught and sold illegally. So then - in cooperation with the help of the GEF SGP and the nearby mainland city of Hoi An - the local Tan Hiep Communal Association of Farmers devised a way of managing the crabs sustainably. This set up a community group, now with 43 members, to harvest the crabs. The group meets at the end of each month to monitor and review how things are going and decide how many can be caught in the following month. There is an annual maximum catch of 10,000 crabs.

Only mature crabs can be sold – the rest must be returned to the forest – which is how the delegates came to be helping to measure them. Any measuring less than 7cm across their shells have to be released back into the forest. The bigger ones are labeled with a highly adhesive sticker and go to the nearby market.

Studies at Vietnamese universities have shown that these community-imposed restrictions are conserving three-quarters of the islands' crabs each year, with the result that their population is now growing. Prices have more than quadrupled since the scheme was introduced, greatly increasing the harvester's incomes, and they, in turn, pay a fee of some US$1.75 per kilogram of crab to fund it.

The land crab is seen as a “bridge” species that connects the islands' forests with the ocean. It is a biological indicator of the health of both habitats, and its recovery has improved them. This, in turn, has increased ecotourism - and thus incomes and the islands' economy, since almost a third of the islands' households are directly involved in it

“On the one hand the land crabs are protected, on the other hand, local people still have livelihoods,” says Chu Manh Trinh, the representative of the marine reserve who guided the delegates round the project.

The GEF SGP project ended three years ago, but the sustainable management scheme has continued to flourish and has gained a national and international reputation, as the delegates' visit testified.

Stefan Schwager, who represents the Swiss government on the GEF Council said it was “refreshing” for Council members “to go to places where you see what's happening on the ground, meet and hear the people, and see it is beneficial for the environment and also at the same time for the local population”.