Thirty-nine participants will be taking part in a first-of-its-kind workshop on “Empowering Youth through Earth Observation” from 1-6 October in Kathmandu. They come from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan and 60% are women.
The inauguration session commenced was opened by Ms Bidya Banmali of ICIMOD’s organizing team. “We are very happy to have young people from all these countries here today”. Director General of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development gave his opening remarks: “It is a privilege to host you today. We are delighted that the youth from all over the region have come together to benefit from a week of exchange.” He emphasized that the South Asian youth’s high experience and capacity to connect is a key building blocs for the future. Referring to the week of upcoming events he described the youth forum as the “first and most important rocket” to launch a successful week on earth observation opportunities in the Nepalese capital.
Youth will play an important role in dealing with climate change in the next few years. Their dissemination of information and knowledge in their private and professional lives will be of utmost importance. Secondly, the Forum puts strong impact on climate action. “I am confident you are here because you are interested, aware, optimistic. So please look at the opportunities you face in the future and make positive contributions.” Finally, the topic of Earth Observation creates tremendous opportunities for action. That is why this week it will be a learning week but also a week to ask questions. “You have to help us make these new instruments useful for your work.”
Asoka Fellow Anil Chitrakar then addressed the audience. He likened the global reaction to the knowledge about climate change to a traditional story: A rabbit is jumping in the field. He sees a crow sitting on a tree and asks “What are you doing?” The crow answere: “Nothing.” – “Can I also do nothing?” – “Sure.” So the rabbit sits, does nothing and gets eaten by a wolf. The moral of the story: Only those at the top can afford to do nothing. Mr. Chitrakar encouraged the participants, therefore, to see themselves as leaders and not as victims – a popular view in the region of South Asia, which considers itself as innocent of climate change.
He also expressed the frustration of many about how much analyses and reports have to be written before action follows the words. As a consequence Chitrakar appealed to the spirit of the young, which means to be able to tell yourself “we can do it”. Anger, the willingness to take risks and mistakes are key in changing mindset through a well-educated youth that can also teach its elders. “We have to understand that this is “one earth, one experiment” without a second opportunity. The reason we only have one, makes us poor. We are not trying to serve the world, but ourselves.” In avoiding the problem of the commons we can realize that a small something is much better than a big nothing.
In his inspirational address, NASA representative, Mr Jason Kessler reminded the participants, which were selected out of 750 applications, of the responsibility that comes with the honour and the impressive title. “You were selected because of a passion and a vision within you and it is the keeping of this vision which will help you to excel and to create the world we would like to see.”
The keynote presentation on climate change and earth observation was delivered by MENRIS Division Head Basanta Shrestha. He asked the question on whether there is enough knowledge and how earth observation technology could be used to improve the understanding on issues, such as climate change, biodiversity and disasters. Even if the people of the region have not been contributing to climate change, vulnerabilities have been created and we need to learn to adapt. In order to adapt we need to have the scientific knowledge. Popular earth observation applications are GoogleEarth, Neo-geography, crowd sourcing, cloud computing and infrastructure products such as the MountainGeoportal and SERVIR Himalaya. He closed the session with an appeal to the Youth: “Climate change is a reality and mountain communities are facing the brunt of it - the biggest driver for change is you.”
This platform will enable the participants of the different events during the Symposium to interact virtually, stay updated on the ongoing sessions and provide a room for debate and creative exchanges.
