Conserving nature and the environment does not stop at the German border. As the saying goes, the world is a village, and the impact of environmental problems reaches far beyond national boundaries. That’s why NAJU does too! As one of Europe’s largest youth environmental organisations, NAJU has worked internationally for many years now.

German NAJU members meet within its International Working Group to plan international projects, which they then carry out with partners in other countries. These collaborations resulted in www.naju-greenboard.net – a network for conservationists to share ideas, experiences and information. Alongside activities like youth exchanges, conferences and training camps, NAJU’s international team actively works to shape political decision-making.

Working with its Israeli partner, the Society for the Protection of Nature Israel (SPNI), NAJU is taking part in a professional exchange in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 ten NAJU employees travelled to Israel for a week to learn all about the action being taken to conserve nature and the environment in Israel from their friends at SPNI. The SPNI team will visit Germany in 2012.

In 2008 NAJU organised the Biodiversity on the Edge international youth conference in Bonn. In the run-up to the ninth UN conference on the preservation of biological diversity, 60 committed young conservationists from 25 countries met to draw up an international resolution for the protection of the Earth’s biological diversity and to present it to UN delegates.

Pictures: (1) Jonas Müller/jugendfotos.de; (2,3) NAJU