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The Youth Ranger Project
Broads Style
Previous reports on Youth/Junior Ranger programmes in the UK focused on programmes in the Peak District and North York Moors National Parks (Ranger 72-Spring 2005). In this article Colin Hart tells us what he has been doing in the Broads."Engaging local young people is a “win-win” situation and it’s also good fun".
Europe-wide
The Youth Ranger Project is a Pan European Project initiated
by Europarc the federation of European Protected Areas. It involves the engaging
of young people in their local protected area. This is done by placing them
with their local Ranger, getting them out in the field doing and seeing stuff,
usually in the form of a week-long stay in the area, carrying out survey and
practical work directly with the Ranger on the ground.
This promotes:
- Team work
- An understanding in natural environment
- Switches them on to the landscape on their doorstep
- Potentially delivers a future employee
There are groups throughout Europe that have been operating for 3 years now with excellent outcomes. In fact they have become victims of their own success as they have produced groups of motivated young people who are clamouring to help in their protected areas, before the Area Managers are really organised enough to be able to use them. This has resulted in follow up programmes to deal with the keen ones such as further youth camps.
The English Experience
Here in the UK we have a long tradition of volunteering in
our local reserves and wild places with local folk getting stuck in doing practical
work. The volunteering ethic doesn’t really exist on the continent and
that is why the Youth Ranger project has been so groundbreaking.
“So why bother here if we have a source of youth volunteers?”
Well the truth is we don’t really fully engage with young people as our
volunteers are usually the more motivated mature people, who perhaps wish they
had got into the environment earlier. So this is where our project comes in
- providing young people the opportunity of carrying out real environmental
work while still at school.
Here in the Broads we are working closely with Bungay High School who offer a Practical Environmental Skills course that is equivalent to 2 GCSEs. We provide the practical work and training on the ground and get project work completed whilst the youth rangers get a real taste of hard work -and they love it (well, most of the time).
At the end of each year we go to another National Park (North York Moors last year) to experience different environments and different tasks. The “camp-out” instils the team ethic whilst away from their home environment and seems to bring the youth rangers more out of themselves.
The results so far are positive with many work projects completed and more than half of them completing the academic side of the course, a statistic that truly amazes their other teachers. Here in the Broads we are currently on our third set of Youth Rangers and we are currently recruiting the fourth.
Other National Parks such as The Peak District and The North York Moors are involved in similar Youth Ranger Projects and we are planning closer links to create opportunities for shared experiences such as shared youth camps within the UK. This is not restricted to the UK of course as there are European camps that can be attended (previous ones being in Germany and Austria). The experience for those Youth rangers involved is invaluable in terms of character building alone.
The bottom line is that we are engaging local young people in their “local” National Park, instilling an understanding and appreciation for their natural environment. It’s a “win-win” situation and it’s also good fun.
Colin Hart (CMA)
Ranger, The Broads Authority