Let’s do democracy like bees: together
Last month, I was in Brussels for the first ever Young Citizens Assembly in the EU as one of eight experts in pollinator conservation and biology, to answer questions about pollinator decline and stakeholders. It was a great honour to be able to witness the assembly and to meet many amazing experts.
The Young Citizens Assembly is the first citizens’ assembly at EU level exclusively for young people. About one hundred young people aged 18 to 29 were randomly selected from the 27 EU Member States to participate in a deliberative democratic process. Over the course of 9 months, they will learn all about pollinators, why they matter and why they are declining, and formulate suggestions and recommendations for how to halt their decline. In the EU, 1 out of 3 species of bee, butterfly, and hoverfly are in decline, and 1 in 10 bee and butterfly species is threatened with extinction. The EU has committed to reverse this decline by 2030: an ambitious goal.
Why young people, you may ask? They are the generation that will be affected by the biodiversity and climate crises the most, yet have the least access to power. Some might not even have had the opportunity to vote yet - but the decisions made by elected officials will affect their lives and futures the most.
If you’re not one of the lucky participants, or perhaps like me, a bit too old, you can still contribute to the discussions via an online forum. There will be dedicated moments throughout the Assembly where the online contributions will be taken into account.
Together, the participants of the Assembly are discovering that the mysterious machine that are the EU institutions are just people like them. And discovering that they want to listen to the citizens they’re working for. As a young person - now slightly too old to have been selected as a participant - I saw my peers in the participants.
How we became Pollinator Ambassadors
In 2019, I moved to Copenhagen to do an internship with the Dutch embassy to Denmark. It was a real struggle, the stipend was €1000 per month, most of which was consumed by my rent. I ate a lot of cabbage salads and canned beans, and discovered Too Good To Go. (If anyone wants my cabbage salad recipe, let me know).
I thought, maybe working in the policy world is not for me - but for the children of the wealthy upper class.
One of the events I attended with my supervisor was an event at the Slovenian Embassy titled “Why Bees Matter”. Right up my street, since I’m the daughter of a beekeeper and have always had a keen interest in insects.
It was there that I met Nadine: a fellow young beekeeper trying to make a positive change in our environment. She was working at a community permaculture project funded by the European Solidarity Corps. She asked the speaker from the European Commission: why is there no funding for young people to actually work on pollinator projects that pay for our time?
I felt this deeply, just having worked for a reforestation project for 3 months without pay - I worked 7 days a week for 3 months to save up for it, and now scraping by on a stipend. Why is it that helping the environment is not worth a decent salary? Surely the environment is the basis for all life and wellbeing, and improving it is not a hobby but essential work. I felt a fundamental disconnect: the world is burning, but I can’t seem to take action without burning out myself.
I walked up to Nadine after the presentation, and we started chatting. We were so similar: (grand)parents are beekeepers, we care deeply about wild pollinators and nature, and we’re struggling to make ends meet.
Together, we approached the speaker from the European Commission to ask why there’s no funding mechanism for youth-led projects? We expected a long answer, but instead, he invited us to come to Brussels to give a lunchtime talk at the Directorate General for Environment about our work and why we need more funding for youth.
And so we went, on a 26 hour train journey from Copenhagen to Brussels.
We realised that Brussels does want to listen, and maybe the policy world is for us. We went on to found our organisation Pollinator Ambassadors, from our vision for a world where all beekeepers are ambassadors for all pollinators, not just honeybees. Also because honeybees are a gateway insect: they draw you in to the insect world and invite you to have a closer look at all the other small beings we share this planet with. They’re an ambassador for other insects.
Nadine and I went on to organise workshops, develop a game based on collective decision-making in a bee swarm (The Hive), conduct research on citizen engagement, and we hosted our first Erasmus+ funded training for young people on the topic of pollinators.
Participatory and deliberative democracy
Six years on, we have a Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators, the first ever EU small grants scheme specifically for youth and pollinators, a citizen engagement for pollinators toolkit, and Buzzing Schools: a project bringing pollinator education to classrooms across the EU. It is hopeful to see these new initiatives in times when democracy is being undermined.
Looking back, maybe this was all already in the works, but I hope our lunchtime presentation added a small push to catalyse these projects.
To all people who care about the environment but feel disillusioned, I want to say: Your voice matters, your work matters, you belong here, and you have allies.