Years from now, when we reflect on how and when a thriving youth-based conservation effort began at CNPS, we might point to April 22, 2025.

On that Earth Day afternoon, eight college-age folks attended a Zoom call with staffers from CNPS and California Environmental Voters (or EnviroVoters, for short). Their subject: A new alliance called Park Protectors, with the goal of guarding parks, monuments, and other public lands from private extraction and other damaging activities.

After sharing their mission and strategies, the four leaders on the call opened the discussion up to the attendees’ own interests and abilities. One young man said he sought to collaborate with California Native American Tribes on conservation work around their ancestral lands. A young woman offered translation services for social media posts and other content for Spanish-speaking audiences. Another attendee offered his drone for aerial photography of threatened lands.

Young faces and voices are often crucial to a cause’s impact and influence: Consider the Parkland school shooting survivors co-founding March For Our Lives, or Greta Thunberg’s searing broadsides against climate change, or Malala Yousafzai’s fearless advocacy on behalf of female education in Pakistan—work that made her the target of a would-be assassin and earned her a Nobel Peace Prize at age 17. Youth-driven efforts are integral to CNPS’s own conservation work around California, from student research grants to its brand-new Advocacy Corps initiative.

Advocacy Corps, which debuted in May, prepares its participants to act on behalf of native plants and biodiversity—from supporting legislative and place-based protection efforts to building relationships with decision-makers in local communities and state government. “We hope this space will be an opportunity for more everyday people to take action,” says Karah Fisher, 24, who helps lead Advocacy Corps as CNPS’s senior coordinator for conservation advocacy and outreach. “We’re providing resources and skills-building for advocates who are on the ground, while offering opportunities for more coordinated strategy. But we’re also providing entry points to people who care about native plants but maybe aren’t sure how to become involved
in advocacy.”

The new CNPS Advocacy Corps is meant for people of all ages and backgrounds, and incorporates a strategic focus on youth engagement. This could range from recruiting college students to offering professional development experiences and establishing “Youth Ambassadors” within CNPS chapters. The latter model recognizes the importance of local student and early career ambassador roles in recent conservation triumphs, such as the efforts of young Coachella Valley residents Brenda Ortiz and Rhian Reyes to help enshrine Chuckwalla National Monument. (Reyes even spoke at the designation ceremony at the White House last January.)

“Young people always say that we care about the environment and that these lands should be protected,” says Ortiz, who graduated this year from UC Irvine. “But I think having a specific goal that we can work towards in our community makes a difference. There’s a lot of excitement involved with protecting lands in our very own backyard.”

Isobel Nairn, a 2023 college graduate and Wyss Conservation Fellow at CNPS who is developing Advocacy Corps alongside Fisher, also worked with Ortiz and other youth advocates during the Chuckwalla monument campaign. “I remember Brenda saying, ‘I care, because this is my community, and up until this point I didn’t have an outlet for that care.,’” Nairn says. “If we could provide that outlet [for young people], I think that would be a really good start.”

Advocacy Corps grew from an idea by CNPS’s former (now retired) lobbyist Vern Goehring, who supports the Advocacy Corps as part of an advisory team of experienced CNPS conservation advocates. Goehring recommended developing formal strategies for CNPS members to engage with policy- and lawmakers. Those strategies take the form of free educational webinars, Capitol lobbying days, and other movement building. Goehring advises chapters to meet with their legislators at least twice yearly to update them on what the organization is working on in their districts—and to make sure students or other young folks are part of every chapter delegation. “It demonstrates a kind of a continuity of interest and support,” he says. “It’s not just a passing fancy of this old guy. Students are doing really creative, interesting research into the natural world and exploring the connections between nature and human beings.”

Partnerships like the one between CNPS and EnviroVoters have that future squarely in mind for upcoming actions. “This is great for us to grow our base and expand our reach to these folks,” says Renna Hickey, the 23-year-old Sierra Nevada regional organizer for EnviroVoters who helped lead the Earth Day call with her CNPS peers. “Now we have a base that trusts us. They do feel empowered by fellow young folks to take action.”

Fisher agrees. “Maybe that first step is small,” she says. “But we’re pretty dedicated to finding more accessible entry points to advocacy.”