NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Scores of students from across the country are learning how to become powerful ocean advocates thanks to Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE), a programme launched by the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF).
Heading into its third year of operation, YRE has tapped into funding from a seemingly unlikely source, wealth management firm Lombard Odier. The financial backing helps provide broader access to young people aged 11-25, as they research environmental issues and promote solutions through editorials, photography, and video journalism.
“We want to build the capacity of young people across the country to effectively communicate about challenges to the marine environment and solutions,” Casuarina McKinney-Lambert, BREEF’s executive director said.
“Although the program culminates in a competition, it’s really a year-round program that involves field trips, field study into the environment giving these young people fodder to write about and take photographs.
“A lot of people are uncomfortable going in the ocean and haven’t yet had a chance to go out and see a coral reef themselves. So, this programme really gets young people into the environment. There are a lot of field studies going on over the weekend, mangrove walks and coral reefs snorkel that are open to children in the programme.”
Already 60 students from a mix of public, private, primary and secondary schools have signed up to tell stories about the ocean to the world through BREEF’s social media platforms and media partnerships.
The Young Reporters for the Environment programme was stablished in The Bahamas in 2019, and already engages nearly half a million youth in 42 countries, according to its website. The local arm was the first in the region and came about through a grant funded by the United Nations Global Environment Facility.
Funding from Lombard Odier allows YRE to provide basic swimming lessons and snorkeling trips free of charge to young people.
According to Renaud Vielfaure, Lombard Odier Bahamas’ Managing Director, the partnership between a private banker and a non-profit conservationist and advocacy group is really not that farfetched.
“We believe the world is at the dawn of the next great economic revolution, one where sustainability will be at the core of all investment decisions. The need to convert to an economy which is circular, lean, inclusive and clean grows ever greater,” Vielfaure said.
“Being a part of that transition means investing in programs for youth which will educate and empower future generations to take decisive actions when it comes to protecting the environment and oceans surrounding vulnerable, small island states like The Bahamas.”
Approximately 95 percent of The Bahamas’ 100,000 square miles of territory is ocean and 35 percent of coral reefs in the wider Caribbean region is located here.
“The ocean is really what makes this country what it is,” said McKinney-Lambert. “Getting local businesses excited and engaged with the ocean in both their business activities, doing that in an environmentally sustainable way, and supporting non-profit organizations that are doing much of the work on the ground is absolutely essential.”
She added: “Sponsorship and donations are so important because we really want to make our programmes accessible to everybody. We appreciate organizations that are working in The Bahamas, getting involved with the really big, really important issues for our island nation.”
Most participants enroll in Young Reporters for the Environment through their schools, although older teens and young adults could contact BREEF for more information and join its mailing list.
YRE meetings are monthly, although, during the pandemic, the program went virtual. In-person summer sea camps are held in New Providence, San Salvador, Andros and Eleuthera.
YRE also offers free field trips to students every spring and fall. To further connect individuals with the marine environment, snorkeling opportunities free to the public are held over the weekend with five snorkelers to one guide ratio, said Allison Longley, YRE’s national operator.
The most popular snorkeling location is the Coral Reef Sculpture Garden and Coral Nursery on the southwest tip of New Providence. It’s home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture and living art gallery. Much of the reef rescue work at the site is conducted by young people in BREEF’s programs.
McKinney-Lambert said: “We’ve found students who initially, really didn’t think they had lots of options for their future and the ocean wasn’t even something that resonated or that they thought was a possibility. They come out on a snorkeling experience and all of a sudden there’s this whole world that they could be a part of and think about when it comes to careers. The experience opens a lot of doors.”
Young people’s work in the program focuses on connections between climate change, carbon pollution and the coral reefs that protect and sustain the Bahamian way of life.
Longley said: “Throughout the year we ask our young reporters to produce different forms of media so they would write a letter to the editor about climate change or utilize our social media pages. Of course, the pinnacle being the national competition where their project is due. Projects are focused on three different topics to choose from: biodiversity loss, plastic pollution or climate change.”
According to BREEF executives, the program’s success is evident in the doubling of its members and competition entries since its inception but more importantly the emergence of youth as powerful communicators.
“These are the people who are going to be most impacted by the decisions older people are making right now, and young people are realizing that their opinions and are concerns are important,” said McKinney-Lambert.
“It’s exciting to be able to amplify their voices and get to the point where young people are producers of information and knowledge and not just passive consumers of it. Knowledge equipped with a platform to connect both nationally and internationally is a really powerful force for good when it comes to protecting the world’s oceans.”
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