Young development professionals and students could pitch solutions to global landscape challenges to a panel of experts in a Dragon’s Den Style Event. :copyright: Andrew Wheeler for Wild Dog Limited / WLE_CGIAR 2015 all rights reserved worldwide.
Being able to express and share my greatest passion with people of my age was something I never believed could happen. Working towards an idea might be deeply exhausting sometimes, as it gets harder and harder to believe that it can actually come true. But then you have the opportunity to create and imagine innovative solutions with a group of young people from all around the world and you have again this boost of energy and motivation that makes you believe again in your idea.
That is what Youth in Landscapes Initiative was to me, an enormous inspiration to keep on working in landscape restoration with a very positive attitude. We were 10 young team members under the challenge of Finance and Trade, coming all the way from Canada, the United States, Peru, Netherlands, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Iran, Vietnam and Mexico. We discussed and worked to develop a solution to the question of “how might we increase equity and transparency between smallholder farmers and the companies for which they produce raw materials?”
Collaboration among such a diverse team was very complex. We all came from very different backgrounds without any similarities in our academic and professional experiences. However, we shared two very specific things that made our teamwork something very special.
The first aspect was that in all our countries land ownership is partially fragmented among small farmers that contribute to global food production but are currently a marginalized group since the benefit of this production is not being equally distributed. While the causes of this problem vary from country to country, having scarce benefits from food production causes small farmers to degrade the landscape in which they live upon in order to meet their needs.
This brings me to the second common aspect in the group which was the passion to change this situation. This allowed us to listen and respect each other, transforming opposite points of view into possible solutions.
After four days of intense work during which we had master classes with experts in the field, tutoring by international organizations and a number of exercises to develop critical thinking skills, we reached a solution that addressed this issue across countries. We formulated a program of local and regional exchange between smallholders with the purpose of stimulating their interest in sustainable practices under similar circumstances, sharing knowledge and resources to update and improve their production processes and increasing their participation in the supply chain.
Along this week we were not only able to define a solution, but most importantly to generate an enriching debate by overcoming language and cultural barriers. The knowledge and capabilities that we acquired in this initiative have followed us to each of our countries, where I am sure we will all use them in order to strengthen and improve our landscapes for younger generations.
I’m confident that Youth in Landscapes Initiative 2015 is a unique start for future positive changes in landscapes all around the world. I am deeply thankful to the organizers for having such a marvelous space to boost innovative and sustainable ideas. #Think landscapes!
Renata Lozano is one of the 10 young champions who will work on the “Finance and Trade” Landscape challenge with Youth program’s partner: Livelihoods Venture
Learn more about the Global Landscapes Forum Youth program, meet our 50 youth champions, discover the 5 Landscapes challenges they took up and the solutions they developed and pitched at the Dragon’s Den on 6th December 2015, in Paris.
