Young People To Feature At Highland Environmental Conference

16th February 2010

On Saturday 6 March 2010 The Highland Council will be hosting a conference in Inverness organised by the Highland Environmental Network (HEN) on the theme of encouraging young people to connect with the environment.

Entitled "Making Green the new Black", the day long event will feature guest speakers and workshops and will look at creative ways to get young people involved with their environment. The main emphasis of the conference is on hearing the opinions and ideas of young people themselves and a number of free places are allocated to pupils from Highland schools.

Youth Convener Magnus Monahan will be one of the guest speakers. He said: "This will be an ideal opportunity for representatives from environmental action groups and communities to come along and hear from young people themselves about effective ways to get them interested and involved. It is really all about finding out what works when it comes to getting primary children and teenagers to take part in environmental activity, both in the local community and in a wider sense."

Following Magnus's presentation on Climate Change, pupils from Inverness High School will be showing a film they produced about carbon footprint at their school before taking part in a question and answer session.

Over the lunch break the HEN annual general meeting will take place in the Council chamber

The afternoon workshops include one looking at energy saving gadgets run by Energy Saving Scotland and another led by representatives from the Abrichan Community Woodland Trust would will be demonstrating bush craft and talking about forest school workshops. Young people from Highland schools eco committees will be also leading workshops on how they got their peers interested in projects.

The HEN Conference is supported by The Highland Council, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Community Foundation and The Co-operative Membership.

Chair of HEN Marion McDonald said: "This year's conference promises to be a really interesting and inspiring event. We hope to have plenty of good discussion and networking on the day, leading on to practical environmental action and projects involving young people throughout highland."

All delegates attending will have the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win a free weekend camping ticket for the 2010 Belladrum Festival.

The conference takes place at The Highland Council's Headquarters, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness. Anyone wishing to attend should visit the HEN website www.highlandenvironment.org.uk and download the booking form. There are a number of free places for Under 18's and any wishing to attend must accompany their booking with a Parental Consent form.