Business Fit Magazine November 2019 Issue 2 | Page 52

Environment
Indigenous territories respecting the physical
and spiritual interconnection between
Indigenous peoples and their homelands;
and which upholds Indigenous rights. The
indigenous people in the Amazon have
been protecting the world’s rainforest for a
very long time. The Amazon rainforest is the
world’s largest carbon dioxide sink and this
year experienced devastating fires throughout
much of South America.
Tekanang, 21, is from the tiny reef-lined island
nation of Tuvalu, which is spread across less
than 20 square miles in the South Pacific and
sit, on average, about two metres above sea
level. As such, the atolls are constantly affected
by sea-level rise and storm surges. In 2013,
the government launched climate actions,
encouraging the youth to be active and voice
opinions about their feelings for the future.
Tekanag helps spread awareness with posters,
for people to be aware of the climate change
struggle.
teaching their children about healthy diets. It
seems many don’t want to take responsibility
for what is happening and rather than doing
something about it, are looking for someone
else to blame.
However, it is the responsibility of us all to
treat our world with respect; to be aware of
the damage, we as a human race, are wreaking
on mother nature; to stop the march of
materialism and put the environment first.
Fortunately, although Greta is the most well-
known, there are plenty of other young people
advocating action against the damage we
seem intent on inflicting on our world.
One of the first young people attempting to
bring the subject of environmental issues to
public notice was Severn Cullis-Suzuki. From
Vancouver, at the age of nine, she founded
the Environmental Children’s Organisation
(ECO), a group of children dedicated to
learning and teaching other youngsters
about environmental issues. At the age of
12, in 1992, she attended the Earth Summit
in Brazil, having raised money with members
of ECO to travel there. Her video, popularly
known as “The Girl Who Silenced the World for
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5 Minutes” presented environmental issues
from a youth perspective. She continues to
be an environmental activist, and has spoken
around the world about environmental issues,
urging listeners to define their values, act
with the future in mind, and take individual
responsibility.
In Canada, 15-year old Autumn Peltier is an
indigenous, clean water activist. A member
of the Wikwemikong First Nation in northern
Ontario, she is also known as the “water
warrior” and has been campaigning for the
universal right of clean drinking water since
the age of eight.
In Kenya, 14-year old Lesein Yes has combined
his love for nature and for football. After
hearing about deforestation, he wanted to
make a difference and now plants a tree for
every goal he scores. He hopes to take his
Trees for Goals initiative across Kenya and
then Africa.
Helena Gualinga, is 17 and from a small
community in Ecuador called Sarayuku in the
Amazon rainforest. She is part of the Living
Forests Declaration, which seeks to attain
recognition for the permanent protection of
At only eight year’s old, Havana Chapman-
Edwards is a US diplomat, a passionate
community organiser and humanitarian, she is
known as The Tiny Diplomat. In June she was
one of the young climate protesters crowded
outside the Democratic National Committee
headquarters in Washington DC, where she
said: “Girls are crying out for help because
of droughts, air pollution, floods, and other
climate disasters, but the politicians are not
listening. I asked them to commit to hosting a
climate debate. But the Democrats locked us
out and pretended not to hear us.”
In Alaska, 17-year old Quannah Chasinghorse
has helped win protections for the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, which the Trump
administration had opened to oil drilling. The
Artic communities are also badly affected
by rising temperatures, and in some cases
have been evacuated from their homes and
ancestral lands due to climate change
Originally from Bangladesh, now living in the US,
19-year old Kulsum Rifa represents the youth-
led social justice group SustainUS. She was
part of this year’s UN youth climate delegation
in New York, where she spoke about climate
refugees. “By 2050, parts of Bangladesh will
be underwater,” she said. “Just the thought of
[my family] not having a place to live breaks my
heart. If we take action now on climate change,
they won’t have to become refugees.”
Jurwaria Jama is 17-year’s old, a daughter
to Somali immigrants. She now lives in
north Minneapolis, a predominantly African
America community, where there is much
industrialisation and a lot of pollution from
fossil fuels. Jurwaria has spoken alongside
US Rep. Ilhan Omar at a recent climate rally
saying: “Climate change has affected my
parents’ home in Somalia because of droughts
and food shortages there; this work I’m doing
relates to them as well. Something that gives
me a lot of hope is seeing so many different
people fighting for this common issue and
realizing that I am not alone.”
Aneesa Khan, 23, has been organising for
climate justice since she was 16. Executive
coordinator of SustainUS, she was born in India
and raised in Oman, where she experienced
first-hand the painful impacts of fossil fuel
extraction. She grew up in a country where
providing drinking water was more expensive
than drilling for oil. Her family’s home on
the South Indian coast was devastated by
droughts and floods, which influenced Aneesa
to dedicate herself to climate justice. She
says: “Climate change isn’t something in the
future. That narrative is fundamentally flawed
because there are millions impacted and
so many displaced already. That is the new
inconvenient truth that no one wants to hear.”
These are just a few of the young people who
are taking climate change seriously and are
making attempts to turn the current situation
around, so that future generations have a
future. We need to take our cue from them
and ensure we too are making efforts to
protect our ailing planet.
Claire Morley is an eco-warrior in her adopted country of Cyprus. She is
the Editorial Coordinator for Business Fit and has worked as a journalist and
editor in Cyprus and has written a fictional book inspired by her experience
as a volunteer in the Philippines. She also runs a business helping authors to
self-publish and promote their books www.myepublishbook.com
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