OUR COMPASS

1. Cultivate youth leadership in efforts to implement and uphold Earth-based practices. Youth leadership is more important than ever, in all levels of decision-making and action. We as EAY build meaningful and trusting relationships with other young leaders who are defending living systems around the world, and with whom we notice alignment in principles, ideas, and pathways. Earth-themed approaches such as Earth Jurisprudence and Rights of Nature have the potential to connect to the rise of diverse youth groups and movements and build new bridges, enabling exciting and impactful alliances.
    

2. Empower and Engage through Information and Education. Only when we are informed can we begin to understand the importance of what we have come to know. When we understand, we grasp the potential power of an idea and start discovering pedagogies and methods that power the idea enough to make it a reality. And lastly, when its potency is grasped, we are able to choose if we wish to act wholeheartedly for it.
    

3. Strategy, Strategy, Strategy. Explore new strategic fora where youth-led Earth Advocacy can be inserted together with high-level leaders and decision-makers, where we as youth can and should influence and co-build solutions as equals.
    

4. Bridge the rights of Nature with Climate Action. We are seeing more lawsuits being lodged against governments and companies because of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the lack of sufficient and proactive actions to address the ecological crises. In the context of climate litigation, the rights of Nature can be a very valuable tool through which non-human living systems establish a direct interest in defending their own intrinsic rights. When all of Earth's living systems, no matter the wildkind, are recognized as subjects of rights in human governance systems, we have achieved a true paradigm shift.
    

5. Reflect upon and build inclusive language for Earth's living systems and processes. We are talking about changing the vernacular language of 'Nature'. Words have immense power because the way we use words and the meaning we place in them produce and reproduce certain patterns, actions, values, and narratives. Ultimately, it is our stories that will recreate us and change today’s dominant narrative that is destroying the preconditions of life on Earth. As storytellers, we must learn the power of our stories and how our language reflects our understandings of our place (and responsibility) on this planet. 
    

6. Learn to listen to and channel the diverse expressions of Nature. One should always talk to the mountain, not about the mountain. The Earth's living systems have countless ways to express themselves. There are many forms of expression, not only using what we know and call "voices". The issue is that a large part of humanity has historically disconnected from the understanding of how to tune in and truly understand these diverse expressions. If we pay enough attention, we will clearly observe how every wildkind - plant, tree, river, lake, sea, human, forest, insect, and more, communicate in their unique ways every second of every day.