It’s 2042 and just after sunrise. The air is sharp with the sweetness of dewy meadow grass. A dozen teenagers sit in a circle around you, listening silently. They have been looking forward to this moment in the day, as they do every day. A shrill staccato song rises from an apple tree. One of your students points out the yellow-eyed singer— a blackbird, jet against the blossoms.

Not that long ago, most thirteen year olds wouldn’t recognize a blackbird, let alone know its call. Urban students like yours never used to have easy access to green spaces. But in the last 20 years, environmental charities, schools, youth-led groups and landowners came together to remodel educational norms. Now almost every school is paired with a wild place like this.

As a teacher, you’ve never seen a transformation like it. The weekly outing has simultaneously calmed and innervated your students. They are more centred in themselves, enough to feel empowered to become changemakers. They have re-learnt ancestral ‘cathedral thinking’ - the act of building, and protecting, for the sake of future generations. And they have meaningful opportunities to act.

Young people like them no longer shout from the sidelines. Now, after years of grassroots advocacy for structural change, they are given a seat at government decision making tables throughout the nation. The blackbird launches itself from the tree, arching up in a dark flash against the brightness. Your students watch with you, and one sketches the bird’s upward path in a notebook he has simply labelled “School.”

“I believe all young people have the right to a greener and fairer future”, says Hendrikus.

Hendrikus Van Hensbergen, the founder of the environmental charity ‘Action for Conservation’ hadn’t planned on working with young people. Instead, he began his career as a conservationist at the World Wide Fund for Nature. But 12 years ago, when he was invited to talk at his old secondary school about his work, he realised something: young people cared about the environment, and understood a great deal about climate change. But they almost never had the chance to spend time out in nature and learn about the environment just on their doorstep. From his own formative experiences in rural Dorset, he knew that if young people could be supported to discover nature for themselves they could be enthused rather than overwhelmed about their climate future. 

He soon learned that while many environmental organisations encouraged young children to get outdoors, few targeted teenagers. Hendrikus knew this had to change. Soon, he established ‘Action for Conservation’, explaining that if we want a healthy climate future, “We can’t just leave teenagers to it and expect environmentalists to pop out at the other end.”

Now, a decade later, Action for Conservation inspires 12 to 18-year-olds from all backgrounds to connect with the natural world. In schools and in summer camps, their conservation workshops bring the wonder of nature into young people's lives and motivate them to fight to protect it as adults.