Welcome to Sierra Leone!
The Sierra Leone team conducted their own Conference "YouthCaN 2002" in Freetown, Sierra Leone on the 29th of April!

Here is their report and a few photos sharing their activities:
THE USING OF TELECOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TO ILLUSTRATE THE IMPACT OF DEFORESTATION AROUND THE MOUNT AUREOL TERRAIN OF FREETOWN.

The area called 'Mount Aureol' is situated West of Freetown. It is engulfed by steep hills and mountains. Many years ago these hills were covered with forest and wildlife. Over time, these habitat was destroyed by people who evaded the over populated part of the city to construct shelters atop these hills. Most of them were displaced families who migrated from the war zones and drifted to the city where accommodation was nil. They have also chopped and logged these trees for firewood and the construction of make shift shelters , exposing the boulders and rocks to lie loose on the surface. These can be seen through the graphics (photos) presented on the web.

Habitat destruction ranks as the leading course of extinction around the Mount Aureol area of Freetown. It includes such bad practices as logging , clearing trees for cattle, mining, building dams , burning etc. Few concrete changes to logging practices have occurred in areas that still retain a minimal forest reserve. Indeed, global concern over the loss of living resources has brought representative and youths from iEARN Sierra Leone to galvanize their energy and resources to illustrate the 'Impact that deforestation has caused on that particular locale', without loosing sight of the global problems.
Photo illustrating the impact of deforestation.
Global environmental norms and pressures for environmental reforms from non-governmental organizations, state agencies, and communities have had little impact on three key factors that drive unsustainable tropical logging: multinational and domestic timber corporations; international trade and corporate traders; and state management and willingness to manage forest resources. This has occurred partially because of direct opposition from these forces, partially because of the inherent weaknesses of environmental reforms in the African communities, and partially because of the complexity of how these forces undermine sustainable commercial timber management. This suggests that even if current efforts to develop a global forests convention are successful, and even as governments embrace new environmental laws and non-governmental groups gain influence, genuine reforms will still occur slowly, perhaps too slowly to save the remaining old-growth tropical forests.

It has been said that the study of global environmental problems within International Relations is dominated by the question of regime negotiation and operation. But while regime theorists have generated many important insights, their work is largely problem solving.

While germane to implementation, the national political repercussions of international policies tend to be disregarded by those assessing the effectiveness of international regimes. These empirical observations are examined against Peter Haas's model of epistemic learning, which is suitably adjusted to take into account the importance of national policy networks at the processing and implementation stages of the policy cycle.

In an article written by Peter Dauvergne, Quoted from: Globalization and Deforestation in the Asia-Pacific he noted that, 'Over the last 30 years, the number of global environmental agreements and non-government organizations has proliferated, and international organizations, states, societies, corporations, and communities have, to differing degrees, been influenced by environmental values. Yet the global spread of environmental ideas has been uneven, contributing to important changes in some areas and minimal changes in other.' This suggests that even if current efforts to develop a global forests convention are successful, and even as governments embrace new environmental laws and non-governmental groups gain influence, genuine reforms will still occur slowly, perhaps too slowly of Africa, and Sub Saharan West Africa. Although not pessimistic in my approach, and believe that the youths of iEARN Sierra Leone and Youth CaN, have started to brave it and begin to thing seriously about environmental issues not only locally but also globally.

Getting down to brass tacks, let me therefore reveal much of how the YouthCaN activities in Sierra Leone unfolded.

We took a cue from last year's Youth CaN activities in Sierra Leone, to spring forward. This made our work a challenging one, having to show the results of our efforts in the previous years, and see how we can forge ahead with a similar idea. Although the theme of the previous Youth CaN event ('Eco-footprint' what kind of Eco-footprint will you leave on the world), was as expected, different from this year's (Globalization, positive and negative aspects), the youths and students had just enough time to realize that the forest of our planet is teaming with life, including species that are yet to be discovered by man and those that have been scared away by bad practices of deforestation.
Youth CaN, IEARN Sierra Leone members pose for the exhibition in artwork and batik on the theme: Illustrating the impact of deforestation around the Mount Aureol Terrain of Freetown. In this photo are Youth CaN pictured (left-Right), Andrew Greene, Thomas Badie, Rashid Peters, Wilfred Mohamed Kuteh, Brima Kamara (Bri Kay), and Joseph Kamanda.
Few months before the actual youth CaN events, the Youths of iEARN/Youth CaN Sierra Leone, have been teaming in groups and hiking in various location to discover the beauty of the seas and beaches, the hikes around the Steep terrain of Mount Aureol, and a whole gamut of interesting activities. On April 28th, 2002, we had a marvelous exhibition at the beach resort, displaying art works in craft that impresses the actions of the team to curb deforestation. The 'batik' art, the hand - crafted animals and species, were all displayed, amidst singing and drumming to an audience. The most important songs for that occasion were written by both youths Rashd Peters and Cecil Cole, and sang by the group of iEARN Youths. Cecil's Song 'Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop The Deforestation' was sang by Cecil Cole, Jane Peters, Andrew Greene, Rashid Peters, Dennis Turay, and John Collier. The song is a clamour for putting an end to the excesses of deforestation in all corners of the globe, and to protect our natural environment that are being fragmented, degraded, and eliminated. The second song written and sang by Rashid Peters and keyboardist was (Dudlyn Keita) is an admonition for all youths as well as the aged to 'Care for the nature, save the nations future generation, cultivate the womb of the land'. The last of the songs was written in Capetown South Africa by Andrew Greene & Rashid Peters, which was intended to have been sang during the Youth CaN workshop, but it is still a song that revamps much of an insight into the relationship between man and his environment and for all humanity to 'Preserve Our Nature Now!' All these songs are on cassettes awaiting to be dispatched on request. It shows the package of surprises that awaits man if he ever gets a chance to explore the life hidden in the forest is only it is being preserved.
This particular exciting event took place at the Lumley Beach resort. Well, The illustrations range from arts and craft to Batik, and of course spiced with drumming and music, and the powerpoint illustrations.

Hope that you like this! Pictured from left to right are YouthCaNers: Denis Turay, Bri-K, Henry Tommy, Andrew Greene& Ibrahim Jalloh.

On the actual day 29th April 2002, when our activities synchronized with the presentation that we could have held in NY, we iEARN Sierra Leone/ YouthCaNers were up to the task of using telecommunication technology to illustrate the impact of deforestation around the 'Mount Aureol' Terrain of Freetown. We were able to utilize projectors and a computer to display the activities of the youths in environmental advocacy, hiking, and used powerpoint to highlight the many problems of deforestation.

It was a very exciting Youth CaN event in Freetown Sierra Leone, and we were proud to be a part of it!

Regards,

Andrew Benson Greene.

National Coordinator,

iEARN Sierra Leone
Tue, 30 Apr 2002 12:17:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Andrew Greene Jr <peacemuse_c21st@yahoo.com>

Hello Everyone at YouthCaN 2002. This is a very special greetings from the Youth CaN team in Freetown Sierra Leone. I am pleased to say that yesterday, we were hooked up in our local youth CaN events with lots of activities, hiking, exhibitions and so on.

The main trust of our Youth CaN activities this year to shed light on the problems facing our local environment viz-aviz deforestation. We had exhibitions like art and craft works of animals, batik decoration and so on.

There were many youth CaNers at the beach already awaiting the arrival of the main crew who carried the bulk of the exhibition. 'Illustrating the Impact of deforestation in the mount Aureol Terrain of Freetown' was the theme and we had to brainstorm this issue clearly and even showed our powerpoint presentations, and the very interesting good works of the youths and students.

The photos will follow soon!

Regards,

Andrew
Preparing for Future Conference
The team in Sierra Leone Team is lead by Andrew Greene Jr <peacemuse_c21st@yahoo.com> .

You can contact him regarding future plans for YouthcaN Sierra Leone.

Andrew Greene Jr
YouthCaN I*EARN Sierra Leone
c/o Miss Adama Kamara, SALPOST
Siaka Stevens Street Branch
Freetown
WA/Western
00232-22330
SIERRA LEONE