Young People & Women
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Increase number engaged through new enterprises, ranger and mentoring schemes
Data collection in progress
Koitajoki Watershed
Finland
Problem: Fewer and fewer young people remain in the area; many decide to relocate to cities. Traditional knowledge and livelihoods are therefore fading, as there are few young people to pass traditions on to.
Action: Snowchange has created a River Guardians programme that allows local people of all ages to be involved in aspects of their restoration work.
Indicator: The number of participating young people and women are two metrics that will indicate not only local engagement with the project, but an equitable engagement across age groups and gender to promote a continuity of stewardship of this landscape over time.
Methods
Snowchange will track the number of people and communities, particularly youth and women, involved in the ranger programme called River Guardians. The River Guardian programme is a pioneering initiative that engages local people and their knowledge in the restoration and monitoring work across the Koitajoki basin. River Guardianship is open to anyone from the Ilomantsi municipality of any age or gender, who care for their local environment and wish to be involved in restoration work by monitoring the conditions and changes over time. Guardians can select what they would like to monitor; this could be a local fishing spot reporting catch numbers, conducting regular bird monitoring by one’s house, or setting up and reviewing camera trap footage. Importantly, the river guardians select what they’d like to monitor based on how they connect to the landscape, and report this back to Snowchange Cooperative. In this context, youth is defined as a person under the age of 30.
River Guardian Tarja Kettunen documenting wildlife sightings at nearby stream. Photo: Martti Kettunen
Tarja Kettunen fishing in Lake Koitere. She and her husband share their catch data with Snowchange. Photo: Martti Kettunen
Riika-Lotta Eveliina Korhonen and Alicia Jarma building earthen microdams in Haravasuo. When the ground is too soft, machinery cannot drive on the peatland, therefore the ditches need to be refilled by hand. Photo: Snowchange
Results
In its first year, sixteen River Guardians have signed up to the programme, six of which are women and two young people. In 2023, nine communities were involved: Luhtapohja, Käenkoski, Tokrajärvi, Tyrjänsaari, Mekrijärvi, Sonkaja, Hakovaara, Ala-Koita, Jaanisvaara. We will update this page annually with new numbers as they become available.
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