Ready to support youth-led biodiversity action?

Young people are at the forefront of biodiversity conservation, yet they face structural funding barriers preventing their efforts from becoming more influential, sustainable and scalable. 

That is the main conclusion of the report Ecologies of Empowerment: Why and how to fund youth-led biodiversity action, published in mid-June by the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, The Iris Project, Synchronicity Earth and the Global Landscapes Forum, and supported by the Global Fund for Children and the Youth Climate Justice Fund. 

The report draws on responses from 161 youth-led initiatives across 57 countries, interviews with funders and insights from over 100 participants at two workshops. “Our hope is that this research helps funders better understand what young leaders need and what needs to change so that more flexible, accessible and trust-based funding can reach them,” said Millie Edwards, Director of The Iris Project, presenting the report. 

Some key findings of the report:

1. Youth initiatives are diverse and build inclusive, progressive next-generation leadership. On average, they work across three to four areas simultaneously, from habitat restoration and species monitoring to territorial defence, contributions to policy and more. Three-quarters of them invest heavily in peer leadership development. 
    
2. Youth initiatives are powered by volunteers and communities, building strong collective ownership but leading to burnout and exclusion. Of an estimated 21,000 contributors to surveyed initiatives, 93 per cent are volunteers. External funding is an opportunity for these initiatives to become more inclusive and sustainable.  
    
3. Youth biodiversity groups bring deep knowledge, skills, drive and strategic thinking to their work, yet barriers to accessing funding persist. These barriers are structural, not capability-based. Complex eligibility requirements, language barriers and unrealistic expectations around existing track records, among other factors, exclude many youth-led, community-rooted initiatives.  
    
4. Youth initiatives are financially insecure and rely primarily on small short-term and inflexible grants with high administrative burdens. The vast majority (85 %) of youth initiatives lack adequate funding: 44 per cent of surveyed organisations operated on less than 1,000 US dollars in 2024, including 20 per cent with no income at all. Of the grants provided, 62 per cent were under 10,000 US dollars, 58 per cent lasted less than a year, and 88 per cent were project-restricted.  
5. Young people need funders committed to their empowerment. Initiatives seek genuine partnerships with funders that reflect care, openness and flexibility while respecting their autonomy.  

“We need patient and flexible support that can follow the rhythms of nature and people. Beyond funding, mentorship and intergenerational support is equally important so youth can learn, grow and make mistakes without the pressure to immediately scale,” said Frances Camille Riveira, Co-founder of Oceanus Conservation, and a young marine ecologist participating in the report. 

Recommendations for funders

Ecologies of Empowerment reframes the funding question as one of systemic risk and calls on funders to take five critical steps:  

• recognise the risk of a sector without youth regeneration and commit dedicated resources 
• co-design fit-for-purpose funding with young people 
• streamline applications and reduce administrative burdens 
• break the “triple glass ceiling” through core, flexible, multi-year grants 
• support changemakers within their own institutions to shift resources towards youth-led work 

Eirini Sakellari, Youth Program Coordinator at Global Landscapes Forum GLF, called on potential funders to be as courageous in their investments “as young people are in their determination to build a more just, regenerative world”.

And John Hecklinger, Co-CEO of the Global Fund for Children, noted that when we resource youth-led work on biodiversity, we are not only protecting species and habitats – “we’re investing in a generation that will carry this work forward for decades”.

(GLF/sri)

Find more information on the GLF website

Link to Report