"Dear Esteemed Guests, good afternoon.
I hope your week started with enthusiasm and will continue to progress in this way.
I'm Kamila Ciok. And I feel honored to be here among those who share care and respect.
Being part of the Baltic Sea Youth Forum opened dialog and expressed the need of us, youth, to take active participation in helping our global village.
Two years ago, I met the only men who stayed in UNESCO World Heritage in Petra, Jordan. He was an old man full of peace and kindness. We had tea in his house build inside of the cave.
I remember I asked why he stayed when All people from his village were moved outside of Petra and provided with running water and electricity. He looked at me and said, "Kamila, I was born here. I wanted to live freely, happy, and with an understanding of my roots. I had my vision of life, and that was my priority."
What am I asking today all of us is, "what is our vision of life together with nature? What are our priorities as a society being part of the ecosystem? What do we need to do balance with the world around?"
Conventions, agreements, and plans are supposed to be the platform where ideas are met and where what we need as a civilization is thought about, is created in a way that gives progress and improves the state we face now. Our team's job is to work on them in a productive manner taking into account all voices and signs left behind now. To do that, we have to develop new and strengthen existing multinational cooperations such as HELCOM. We need to employ an ecosystem approach to manage human activities at sea and on land and promote land-sea interaction and policy integration to reduce levels of eutrophication. We need support and encourage sustainability through nature-based solutions across all different sectors of the economy in the Baltic Sea Region.
We understand that sustainable food systems are the ones that are based on nature, that promote local and healthy food, that mitigate the impact associated with international trade, and that support local farmers.
It is not about pushing the responsibility. It is not about whom we should blame, whom we should charge with guilt - it is about moving forward, about forgiveness, and building our future on the shoulders of our past of mistakes and successes. It is about us taking the lesson seriously and having it in our minds. Being rational, being emotional, thinking with heart, thinking with the brain - these are not separate things - these are complementary motions of our existence, of understanding what we need to do together.
We as a young generation are striving for cooperation, inclusivity, empathy, and being engaged with the decision-making process. We are not afraid of speaking our minds; we are taking seriously what we see. Nevertheless, we are worried, and that being said, we are ready to act.
We have hope in all of us as human beings. We have hope in all of us as facilitators of innovative and inclusive change. Finally, we have hope in all who care about nature as our roots of everyday life.
Let us understand that our absolute freedom is not to worry about what will happen tomorrow but be happy about what we did today.
This is our mission. This is our choice. This is our biggest chance to make it possible.
Thank you."
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