Wendy Ancieta (ELP 2024) | Legal Advisor, Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, Peru

This year I had the opportunity to attend for the first time the Biodiversity COP in Cali, Colombia. My organization, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, sent a delegation of 6 people to this great event. We organized different events in the Blue and Green zones regarding the importance of the approval and implementation of the Escazu Agreement in Latin America; the negative impact of illegal mining in biodiversity and the rights of indigenous people; and, the protection of the sea as an important font of biodiversity.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to participate in different events, listen to amazing stories, meet new colleagues, and run into good friends, like Yaisa, who I met at the 2024 Beahrs ELP Program. Nevertheless, if I must pick one experience that shaped my participation, it was the testimony of an indigenous young leader in the panel “Empowering women environmental defenders”. She asked a question that is still in my head: “What tools are we leaving to the young generations in order to face climate change?”

Although it is true that many of us are working relentlessly to face the impacts of climate change, and maybe some of the future impacts are going to be avoided, there are some impacts that unfortunately are unavoidable, such as the different extreme weather conditions that many countries are facing right now. So, future generations are probably going to fight against the worst consequences, consequences originated by past generations like ours. Therefore, what are we doing to help them?

Part of our task is to do everything in order to prevent or avoid the consequences of climate change. There is also the part where we have to mitigate the unavoidable effects. The other part of our job is to engage new generations in better practices that reduce climate change, which translates in educating new generations, and creating tools that they can use in the future.

There is an important role that schools have to engage children in environmental topics and projects. It is important that from an early age children are aware that they have the right to live in a healthy environment, this will allow them to demand from governments the protection of the environment.

Yet, we still need to develop and promote new mechanisms to adapt to the effects of climate change, especially in highly vulnerable countries, such as habitat banks for compensation, natural infrastructure projects, and other effective area-based conservation measures, among others. The implementation of these different mechanisms and the engagement of the youth and children in the construction of said projects is key so they can learn more about their function and importance.

I am looking forward to participating in more of these high level events not only to learn more about the different practices to have a healthier environment, but also to reflect more about what we are doing so far and what we can do better to get in peace with nature.

Blog photos provided by blog author, Wendy Ancieta.