Every year, hundreds of youngsters spend a summer evening hunting along the canals that crisscross the Japanese city of Kanazawa. They are on the lookout for blinking points of light that reveal their target: fireflies.
Its like a treasure hunt and its really fun! Genta Sugita, 13, said last month during the annual firefly count organized by the municipality. Its so beautiful how fireflies glow as they fly, then stop, then glow again over and over.
Youth engagement is central to Kanazawas strategy to preserve and restore the citys natural and cultural heritage, including its historic canals and gardens. Its success has caught the eye of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which has selected it as a model for other municipalities looking to restore their urban ecosystems.
More and more cities are moving to restore nature to blunt the worst impacts of climate change and make urban living more pleasant, says Mirey Atallah, Chief of the Adaptation and Resilience Branch in UNEPs Climate Change Division. Involving young people creates a bond with nature and ensures that these initiatives deliver for both current and future generations.
On 12 August the world will celebrate International Youth Day, which will focus on how governments can incorporate the skills and perspectives of young people in the urban planning process.
Kanazawa, a city of some 450,000 people on Japans main Honshu island, has more than 150 kilometres of rivers and irrigation canals. It also features more than a dozen heritage-listed parks, including the Kenroku-en landscape garden and the grounds of Kanazawa Castle that date from the 17th century.
According to Yoko Tomita, Programme Coordinator for the United Nations University and its Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), many green spaces in Kanazawa were lost to development after the Second World War. More recently, others, like private gardens, have been abandoned or replaced by parking lots, a reflection of an ageing population and the migration of young families to the suburbs.
The municipality has responded with a raft of initiatives to bring back greenery and revitalize traditional cityscapes. These include work to rehabilitate the canal network, develop clean transportation services and promote sustainable tourism. To engage the public, Kanazawa has also launched information campaigns and volunteer programmes, and helped establish community gardens.
Many of the initiatives were developed in cooperation with the Tokyo-based UNU-IAS, including its youth engagement drive.
One example is a programme that empowers high school students to explore how global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss relate to their own communities. Through workshops and fieldwork, participants develop ideas for local action. Some have shared their perspectives at international events, such as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan in 2024.
The annual firefly surveys, meanwhile, are part of a wider citizen-science initiative to monitor biodiversity within the city. More than 4,500 children took part in the survey in 2024, according to Tomita. The findings revealed firefly activity in over 600 locations.
That included 170 sites where more than 10 individuals were observed an exceptional number in an urban environment, she says.
The insects are profiting from the uncovering of previously paved-over canals and the restoration of their channels. Traditional stonework along the banks and rehabilitated canal beds have created habitats for aquatic biodiversity, including snails on which the firefly larvae feed.
Tomita says many of the young surveyors find the experience transformative.
They describe a newfound sense of responsibility, curiosity and connection with nature, she says. Parents often reflect that the project fosters intergenerational dialogue, with families discussing how to care for their shared environment.
UNEP is showcasing Kanazawa as part of its Generation Restoration project to help cities and towns around the world to value, restore and protect urban ecosystems, including by integrating them into their planning and development processes.
Funded by the Government of Germany, the project is part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global initiative whose aims include helping countries deliver on their commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of ecosystems.
The UNEP project is providing technical and financial support for restoration drives in more than a dozen pilot cities and helping them to network with model cities that can provide insights and inspiration. Kanazawa representatives have shared their expertise on youth programming during workshops held earlier this year in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Kanazawa.
Its important to help children see that nature is part of their culture and their history, Atallah says. That can help young people be allies of nature, in their cities and beyond, for the rest of their lives.
The UNEP Generation Restoration project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), focuses on scaling up urban ecosystem restoration. Running from 2023 to 2025, UNEP, in collaboration with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and ICLEIs Global Biodiversity Centre, is working with 24 cities to address key political, technical, and financial challenges.The project has two key components:advocating for public and private investment in ecosystem restoration and job creation through nature-based solutions and empowering city stakeholders globally to replicate and scale restoration initiatives. This initiative stands as a contribution to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
The UN General Assembly has declared 20212030 a UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, together with the support of partners, it is designed to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It aims at reviving billions of hectares, covering terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. A global call to action, the UN Decade draws together political support, scientific research, and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.
The planet is experiencing a dangerous decline in nature. One million species are threatened with extinction, soil health is declining and water sources are drying up. TheKunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Frameworksets out global targets to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. It was adopted by world leaders in December 2022. To address the drivers of the nature crisis, UNEP is working with partners to take action in landscapes and seascapes, transform our food systems, and close the finance gap for nature.
