Youth Day Activities to Focus on Presidential Proclamation 20-279 Year of Environmental Action: “To Protect the Nest of Life”

In preparation to the National Youth Day this year on  March 15, the Office of the President, with the Ministry of Community & Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment & Tourism and Our Oceans Conference 2020 Secretariat in collaboration with community partners: the Palau International Coral Reef Center, the Palau Conservation Society, the Environmental Quality Protection Board Agency and Friends of the Sanctuary-Palau National Marine Sanctuary are organizing a two day Youth Conference that will be held on March 12 and 13 of this year.

The conference theme will be in line with the Presidential Proclamation 20-279 the Year of Environmental Action: “To Protect the Nest of Life” with a main focus on the impacts of marine pollution.   As such, there will be activities for youth and students to visit our marine and terrestrial sites to extend knowledge on our environmental protection and management actions in place.

The focus on this year’s Youth Day is to provide extensive learning and participatory actions of our young people, especially students to protect our environment, our land and our ocean, and emphasis to support banning single-use plastic and exploring solutions through our students to address the plastic pollution in Palau that can be harmful to our marine and land environment as well as our marine life and our land which are essential to our Palauan livelihood.

The target site visits are MPAs/PAN and the rock island southern lagoon sites, where students with teachers and key agencies will take part in a dialogue exchange on marine/land environment and cultural learning, impacts, protection, resiliency and sustainability of our environment that is our nest of life.

The target group of this year’s Youth Day conference and external activities is for juniors and seniors of all high schools, and also open to any youth who is interested to join.   If you’re interested to join this year’s youth activities, please contact Mr. Hadden Seklii at the Bureau of Youth Office, telephone number 488-2626/8584.