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MAB Youth spokespeople take part in an intergenerational dialogue with Jane Goodall, Vik Muniz, Mauro Colagreco and Anthony Johnston

18/11/2021
15 - Life on Land

On Wednesday 17 November, an intergenerational dialogue in the framework of the 50th anniversary of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme was held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, with the participation of Alicia Donnellan Barraclough (EuroMAB), Rebecca Laibich (AfriMAB) and Obed Palagot Echavarria (IberoMAB), MAB Youth Spokespeoples for the 50th anniversary.

The youth spokespeople participated in the dialogue alongside prominent personalities: Dr Jane Goodall, official spokesperson for MAB's 50th anniversary, famous for her historic and ground-breaking work with chimpanzees (United Kingdom); Anthony Blair Dreaver Johnston, member and collaborator for Special Projects with the Mistawasis Nêhiyawak community (Canada); Mauro Colagreco, Argentinean chef with three Michelin stars, who works to enhance the cultural and natural heritage of the Alpes-Maritimes region (France); and Vik Muniz, internationally renowned artist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador (Brazil).

The intergenerational dialogue commemorated 50 years of the MAB Programme's legacy at the service of nature and the emergence of a new generation of young people who are working every day in their communities, research centres, non-governmental organizations and as individuals to conserve biodiversity and build a living world in harmony with nature.

We must not lose hope, we would be fools to do so. We are in a dark tunnel - political, social and environmental - but at the end there is a light. But it is not enough to sit back and wait for that light to come to us. We will not move forward if we do not all work together to overcome the obstacles we will encounter on our way

Jane Goodall

Rebecca Laibich, representative of AfriMAB Youth, lives in the Mount Elgon Biosphere Reserve in Kenya. She reminded the audience that for biodiversity conservation to be sustainable, it is not enough to include young people as volunteers, they need to be able to dedicate themselves professionally and sustainably to this task, and biosphere reserves can play an important role in generating employment for the young people who live there.
Alicia Donnellan Barraclough (EuroMAB) currently lives and works in the Nordhordland Biosphere Reserve in Norway and is a researcher at the UNESCO Chair at the University of Bergen. For her, it is of utmost importance to work transversally in the production of knowledge and to share knowledge in an inclusive and equitable way for people and the planet. Obed Palagot Echavarria lives and works in Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.

As a representative of IberoMAB, he stressed the importance of collaborating and encouraging the participation of indigenous and local communities in the management of biosphere reserves and insisted that “the inclusion of local and indigenous knowledge in biodiversity conservation is as important as the applications of scientific knowledge”. 

© UNESCO

Obed and Rebecca, accompanied by Tania Moreno, Chair of the Costa Rican MAB Committee, also visited the Marais Audomarois Biosphere Reserve in northern France, a protected area of wetlands, peat bogs and agricultural areas linked by a network of centuries-old canals. The young spokespeople were welcomed by the local MAB team at the biosphere reserve's interpretation centre, where they were able to exchange ideas on conservation and visit the public exhibition.

The visit also included a tour of the wetlands in the core area of the biosphere reserve, guided by an ornithologist who gave an interactive presentation on the rich biodiversity of this important migratory stopover. In addition, the spokespeople met with key stakeholders of the reserve at the “Maison du marais” (House of the Wetland), which promotes sustainable tourism and currently hosts two ethnographic exhibitions.

The last part of the visit took the spokespeople on board a "bacôve", a traditional boat, to discover, in the company of a farmer and a boatman, the canals and polders that have shaped local agriculture until today and remain the best tools for the conservation of the ecosystem. This biosphere reserve is a clear example of the importance of maintaining a fruitful and harmonious relationship between people and their environment, based on respect for natural processes and the benefits of preserving the ancestral practices of local communities.

The UNESCO MAB Programme has a strong commitment to young people as agents of change and seeks to strengthen their place in the governance of the Programme at all levels, encouraging their participation in the global debate on biodiversity conservation and climate change.

© UNESCO

 

Full video of the event