Funds for Youth: Not a myth!

How many opportunities for young restoration practitioners can be found online, where you see a focus on facilitating the leadership of newbies into environmental spaces? Not many, right?! 

Amrin Ansari discussed with the local women about their problems and expectations for the project. Photo: Sanjay Molur

For most funding and capacity-building opportunities, young people are usually required to have extensive field experience. In my experience being a youngster seeking to conserve and restore ecosystems, the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) was one of very few organizations in the world that helps passionate young restoration practitioners.

Pooja Kumar, a community leader gave a talk to the students at a government school on conservation. Photo: Sanjay Molur

Early in 2023, I came across the Restoration Stewards program by the Global Landscape Forum. Being a budding conservationist, the opportunity seemed like an amazing idea to kick start the Himalayan Restoration Project (HRP), the restoration project I have been leading under the Zoo Outreach Organization in India. 

Women’s self-help groups help conduct restoration. Photo: Vishal Ahuja

The Zoo Outreach Organisation started the Himalayan Langur Project (HLP) back in 2012 to conserve the habitat of the endemic Chamba Sacred Langur. This project was kicked off by my mentor, Dr. Sanjar Molur, and his team, who after being in the region for 12 years, realized that a landscape approach was required to conserve the species. 

Chamba Sacred Langur. Photo: Arpan Joshi

I have been working with the HLP team since 2022, and have tried to start restoring the area with planting native trees in the region. As a young individual with the hope to restore a huge landscape, it was quite difficult to win confidence from funders. We were overjoyed when we received the news that our project was selected for the 2024 Restoration Steward program when I was chosen as the Mountains Restoration Steward for this cohort.

Being selected for the program was very important to bring visibility to our work, as the Himalayan Restoration Project is not only a rewilding project, but a part of the wave of community empowerment in the landscapes we work in. 

The Himalayan Restoration Project today has not only restored more than 1500 tree saplings but also educated over 100 women and 300 students. We’ve trained more than 50 young people and women, hired local people and established a community-led first native nursery. All this while creating a sense of love among the community for their landscape. 

The team leading the project has been an inspiration to girls in a marginalized region in India, who today can dream of moving out of their home cities and living a life of their choice. 

The HRP team near the community nursery. Photo: Paridhi Modi

The journey began officially on 21 March 2024, when our team began actively restoring the Western Himalaya with school students, women and local communities. The Global Landscapes Forum and the Youth Landscape Initiative (YIL) have been profoundly instrumental in this process, as they have funded our efforts.  Our collaboration with GLF and YIL  has also provided us with different opportunities, including a global platform to present our work, training to accelerate our skills and connecting our team with mentors.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about how being selected for the Restoration Steward program has had a great impact on the Indian Himalaya. The program has played an integral role in enabling local women and youth to fight the climate crisis, conserve wildlife, plant native trees, employ Indigenous individuals and become the ray of hope for an otherwise dying habitat.

In this past year, our participation in the Restoration Stewards program has enabled our team to strengthen their skills as committed young conservationists, restoration biologists and community conservationists. We are very grateful for the GLF Youth Team, who saw the potential in our project and provided us with different avenues to facilitate integrating local community members in our programming.  

Local Ambassador and GLF intern Shanti working at the nursery Photo: Kritika P

It would be fair if I didn’t mention a few of the amazing people who have been there for me and my team, people who were always just a call away to help me with my doubts, give me recommendations and  share reminders to keep us on our toes. Thank you Pê, Eirini, Laari and the GLF Youth team for all the support.

The future is quite positive for our team. We are at present raising funds to continue the HRP project and restore 860 hectares of land in collaboration with local communities. The community nursery can continue to be a sustainable economic source for women in the future and we will continue to inspire the youth in the region to become future climate warriors.

The team collecting native seeds for restoration. Photo: Sanjay Molur