Investing in local skills is the heart of conservation and filmmaking in Africa

AS WE REFLECT on International Youth Day the question around access to opportunity for young people remains a pressing one.

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Our mission, as Nature, Environment and Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF), strikes a chord with this theme in that we know that high level skill is required of young people, before meaningful access to opportunity is afforded to them.

We find ourselves at a key, yet often-overlooked intersection of potential, the fusion of conservation and filmmaking, and the urgent need to invest in local skills to steward both. In other words, our problem is twofold: we need to tell conservation stories, and we need to tell them in a local and contextually relevant voice. Too often, stories about African wildlife, environmental change, and indigenous knowledge are captured through lenses far removed from the communities and landscapes they portray.

For decades, international narratives about Africa's biodiversity have dominated global platforms, despite being filmed on African soil and shaped by African realities. It's time to shift that paradigm by equipping African storytellers with the tools, mentorship, and platforms to tell their own stories.

This is the ethos behind the NEWF movement, a thriving ecosystem of emerging African conservation storytellers.

At the heart of our approach is a radical and necessary idea: the people closest to the land, the sea, and the cultural memory of place are the most qualified to tell its stories.