MEDIA

We held a panel event at Climate Cymru's Mass Lobby in September 2025 - apologies for the shoddy editing, it was recorded on just two phones and without microphones. We did out best and hope you can hear it okay. Here's some more information and briefings on the Bill: https://waleslink.org/wel-panel-at-climate-cymrus-mass-lobby-act-now-change-forever/

Join Reserva: The Youth Land Trust and friends for a jam-packed session of inspiring talks, incredible imagery, and empowering calls to action: "Our Future with Nature" We’ll kick things off with a round of quickfire talks to show the incredible diversity of life in the world’s rainforests whilst covering topics such as health and rights-based approaches. Rarely do we simply celebrate rainforests and these quickfire talks will do just that! But what can young people around the world do to help rainforests? We’ll hear from a panel of international youth organisations working to protect rainforests in different ways. Each will discuss their missions and visions and their collaboration on the “Our Future with Nature Manifesto” and the upcoming United Nations Biodiversity Conference.  Sign the manifesto: https://www.ourfuturewithnature.org/ Joe Wilkins, Reserva: The Youth Land Trust Callie Broaddus, Reserva: The Youth Land Trust https://reservaylt.org/ Sakshi Krishna, Youth for Our Planet https://youthforourplanet.com/ Yen Parico, CoalitionWILD https://coalitionwild.org/ Learn more about World Rainforest Day: https://worldrainforestday.org/

Happy #InternationalYouthDay! Check out our debut episode of Common Climate Questions, in which Joe Wilkins of Reserva: The Youth Land Trust shares his thoughts on pressing prompts such as "How can youth get policymakers to listen?" and "What can we do about climate change?"

We had our first Local Youth Environmental Assembly! In this session, we heard from Joe and Anna who were participating at UNEA 5.2. They shared their experiences and observations, both from attending live in Nairobi as well as online.

What does it take to create the world’s first entirely youth-funded nature reserve? How do you shape an organisation that bridges the gap between youth advocacy and tried-and-true methods of conservation? Reserva: The Youth Land Trust is a one-of-a-kind organisation empowering youth to make a measurable difference in the future of our planet through projects in conservation, education, and storytelling. In this webinar, the team will share their organisation and experience! They will present and discuss the operational structures and creative strategies that they have implemented to empower effective youth-led biodiversity conservation. This will include instructive behind-the-scenes case studies and testimonials, highlighting how young people with a shared love of wildlife have overcome traditional barriers in order to elevate youth voices and allow young people to take direct action for nature. Speakers: Callie Broaddus (Founder and Executive Director at Reserva), Joe Wilkins (Conventions and Policy Officer at Reserva) and Alex Collins (Media Officer at Reserva). More info about Reserva can be found here: https://reservaylt.org/ Want to watch more Conservation Optimism webinars? You can find our programme here: https://conservationoptimism.org/webinars/

Joe Wilkins provided the first keynote speech on day 2 of the first Chester Zoo Youth Symposium on the 14th November 2021. Royalty free music provided by BenSounds.

There is a need to develop a strategic response to climate change through a variety of mechanisms suited to our national circumstances. These include national adaptation strategies and local-level initiatives, such as adaptation plans. The challenge is to translate planning into successful implementation, building on examples of good practices that have emerged to build resilience to flooding, housing, utilities infrastructure, as well as building our energy and power resilience for the future. Managing the environment better and restoring natural habitats and processes can help to protect people from the effects of climate change. Nature can contribute to climate mitigation with conservation, restoration, and/or improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands. Lee Pitcher hosted the evented and present the global blueprint for water resilience, with specific reference to the ‘Living with Water’ partnership and connections to other global estuarial cities. Joe Wilkins discussed UK Youth for Nature campaigns and their role as the youth voice fighting for the UK’s nature and wildlife, including their input into the forthcoming COP26, influencing Government, and which organisations and individuals they work with to provide a platform for young people to speak up and be heard. Pip Betts gave an insight into how we can improve the flood resilience of our places and communities. As flood events become more frequent and severe, we will need to complement large scale engineered flood defences with smaller nature based solutions, green infrastructure and property level resilience. There is critical role for Humber based SMEs to play in creating flood resilience solutions for local, national and global markets. Nick Voase shared his family’s fascinating diversification story from growing potatoes to industrial hemp and the thousands of uses of hemp including how hemp can be an ecological wonder-plant for UK farming. As a trial participant and at the forefront of hemp growing and product innovation in the UK, Nick will explore the potential to capture carbon in the future. Richard Harris outlined Drax’s ambition to partner with British farmers to scale up the production of dedicated energy crops. These energy crops would be used by Drax to power its pioneering carbon capture and storage project that would remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Increased production of energy crops would also have a number of benefits, in terms of climate change mitigation and diversifying Drax’s fuel supply.

Episode 1 - Hiraeth How does nature impact how we feel? In this episode, Aura and Ella speak to Joe Wilkins about his experiences growing up by the coast and then moving to London for university. They discuss the impacts these physical landscapes have on our wellbeing and all three give their perspectives on the power of nature. They propose potential ways that fair access to nature can ensure we all have chances to improve our wellbeing. Inspired? Check out our Nature Nearby campaign: https://youthfornature.uk/nature-nearby/ Want to know more about how you can deepen your connection with nature and maybe feel better too? https://www.thrive.org.uk/ https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/thriving-with-nature/guide https://mhmonster.org/how-to-use-nature-to-improve-your-mental-health-and-wellness/ This podcast is also available on major podcasting platforms!

Find your place in the fight for our forests and our future! To capture a full shot of what’s happening in conservation today, we’ve assembled a team of individuals who are not only fighting the fight now, but are the future of it, too: youth environmentalists. These young visionaries represent four organizations with different approaches to the shared mission of protecting our planet. Covering the fields of research, policy, education, and field work for conservation, they’ll share stories and tips to help you find your place and tap into your power in this fight! Meet the speakers: Zuzanna Witek is a high school sophomore from Poland. She is passionate about the underwater world and using science and art connections in education. Her interest in interdisciplinary studies has led her to start a teen-led organization working to spread awareness about our connection to the oceans and increase ocean literacy levels, both locally and internationally. Thriving Corals has since then received an award in the 2020 Bowseat Ocean Awareness Competition and continues to grow as more teens, educators and scientists join to work on the different programs run by the project. Roshan Khan is a 19-year-old junior at The University of Texas at Austin, quintuple-majoring in Plan II Honors, Government, Economics, Chinese, and International Relations and Global Studies. She has been with Rainforest Partnership as the leader of Gen Z for the Trees since June 2020. She also works as an undergraduate researcher in economics, and was a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholar. She hopes to be both a public servant and a novelist, to turn her solarpunk vision of the world into reality. Joe Wilkins is an environmentalist and ocean-lover, with a background in ecosystem ecology and a passion to achieve greater youth involvement and empowerment in conservation and environmental policy. Joe is the Conventions & Policy Officer at Reserva: The Youth Land Trust and Co-Leader of Reserva’s Run for the Rainforest Campaign. Naia Andrade Hoeneisen is the co-founder of La Neblina conservation group, whose focus is supporting the new wave of conservation that nurtures the link between environmental protection and other disciplines - architecture, gastronomy, politics, and more. She is 20 years old, studies Biology and Photography, and lives in Ecuador.