This is part of a short series for International Youth Day that is looking at how young people see, understand, and are acting for and with forests.
Protect the Biodiversity in Our Forests
Tree planting is often erroneously touted as a panacea to climate change since trees can act as a natural way to tackle both mitigation and adaptation. We have to be careful to protect the old-growth, biodiverse forests that currently exist since they provide numerous unique ecosystem services that we can't begin to imagine. We have to ensure that we don't fall for a solution that asks us to plant new monoculture tree farms at the expense of our genetically diverse old-growth forests. We have to protect not only our trees and our forests, but also the biodiversity within them.
About the Artist:
Emma Thornton is a lead member of the Youth4Nature USA team and a Project Manager with Energy Solutions. She is a recent graduate of Northeastern University with expertise in sustainability and environmental justice, shaped by experiences with Environment America, Oxfam, J-PAL, Ceres, and NEJRC. When not researching climate solutions, Emma can be found walking dogs through Boston parks.