One tree changed Ghaya Alhababi’s life and inspired her to become one of the youngest environmental activists in the region. Determined to make a difference, she kept going despite setbacks, disappointments, and people’s lack of interest in environmental issues. Ghaya Alhababi discusses what sparked her passion, the challenges she faces along the way, and her efforts to get more people involved in protecting the environment.
I have often wondered how different my life would be if that tree had been cut down. I do not remember where we were driving that day. I do not remember what I was wearing, or where we were going. But I remember the tree.It stood alone in the middle of the road, and to my childhood eyes, it made no sense. “Why didn’t they remove it?” I asked my father.
He smiled and explained that the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan believed that development should adapt to nature, not the other way around. Instead of removing the tree, the road had changed its course so that it could remain exactly where it was.
I was too young to understand sustainability, environmental policy, or stewardship. But I understood something else. A tree mattered. A single tree mattered enough for an entire road to move around it. I think that was the first time I understood that progress and protection do not have to be opposites.
As I grew older, my curiosity grew with me. I began reading about environmental challenges around the world, and one issue in particular stayed with me: coral reefs. I learned that these extraordinary ecosystems, often called the rainforests of the sea, are disappearing because of rising ocean temperatures and climate change.
I remember looking at photographs of bleached coral reefs and feeling something I had never felt before: grief for a place I had never even visited. It was a strange feeling. How could I mourn something I had never seen?
I eventually realized that I was not grieving only for coral reefs. I was grieving for possibilities—for the experiences future generations may never have and for the beauty we may allow to disappear within our lifetime. That realization changed something in me.
I did not want to simply care about environmental issues. I wanted to contribute to solving them. I began seeking opportunities to learn more, to engage in conversations about sustainability, and to understand how young people could become part of the solution. The more I learned, the more I realized that environmental protection is not only about preserving nature. It is about protecting people, communities, and futures.
Turning concern into action
Eventually, this sense of responsibility led me to found Green Buds in 2021, a youth-led environmental community rooted in a simple belief: young people are not too young to care about the environment, and certainly not too young to help protect it.What began as a small idea grew into a community of around 50 young people. Together, we have participated in more than 50 clean-up activities, recycling workshops, environmental awareness sessions, and community campaigns. We have created Green Buds Boxes to encourage recycling and develop activities that make environmental action more accessible to children and families.
But Green Buds taught me something that I could never have learned simply by reading about sustainability: caring about an issue and creating lasting change are two very different things.
One of our biggest challenges was turning enthusiasm into consistent action. Young people often care deeply about the environment. They see plastic on beaches, hear about climate change, and want to help. But wanting to help does not always mean knowing where to begin. Sometimes environmental problems feel so large that individual action seems too small to matter.
At first, I thought awareness itself could inspire action. Over time, I learned that telling people about a problem is not always enough. People need a way to participate. That realization changed the way I approached environmental advocacy. Instead of asking only, how can we make people care? I began asking, how can we give them something meaningful to do?
Clean-ups became more than removing waste. Workshops became more than presentations. Recycling became more than placing an item in the correct bin. Each activity became an opportunity for young people to experience what environmental responsibility looks like in practice.
Not everything worked equally well. Activities that were too focused on information did not always create the engagement we hoped for. I noticed that children especially responded much more strongly when they could participate, create, ask questions, and see the result of their contribution.
That became one of my most important lessons: environmental education works best when people are participants rather than spectators.
Learning to make ideas meaningful
Green Buds also gave me opportunities to explore how environmental messages could connect with culture and identity.One experience that stayed with me was taking the story of the ghaf tree beyond the UAE through our “Ghaf to Russia” initiative during the World Youth Festival in Sochi in 2024.
For me, the ghaf is more than a tree. It represents resilience, belonging, and the ability to survive and give even in difficult conditions. Sharing that story internationally helped me understand that environmental advocacy becomes more powerful when it is connected to something people can remember and relate to.
Later, through “From Neglect to Inspiration,” which we presented in Tangier, Morocco, we explored another idea that has become important to me: things we overlook, or discard can sometimes become the starting point for creativity and environmental awareness.
Experiences like these changed my understanding of what it means to be a young environmental advocate. I once thought advocacy was mainly about speaking. Now I believe it is just as much about listening, experimenting, adapting, and sometimes accepting that an idea needs to change.
A project may look successful because many people attended it, but numbers do not always tell us whether behavior changed. A workshop may deliver excellent information, but that does not necessarily mean the audience will act on it afterwards. This has made me think more carefully about impact.
I have learned to value smaller signs of change: a child who asks how to recycle at home, a young person who joins another environmental activity after attending one of ours, or a family that begins thinking differently about waste. These may seem like small outcomes, but Green Buds itself began with a small idea.
When young people do not know where to begin
Through this journey, I have met remarkable young people who care deeply about the future of our planet. I have also discovered something that concerns me: many young people want to contribute, but they often do not know where to begin.Some lack access to mentorship or opportunities. Others struggle to transform their ideas into meaningful projects. And many are still seen only as future leaders rather than as contributors today. This is a challenge I have experienced personally.
Being young can open doors, but it can also mean having to prove that your ideas deserve to be taken seriously. I learned that credibility does not come from saying that young people should have a voice. It comes from showing what can happen when they are actually given responsibility.
This is why opportunities to participate in environmental discussions and initiatives have mattered so much to me. Whether through Green Buds, youth sustainability programs, environmental events, or conversations with decisionmakers, each experience has taught me something different. But perhaps the most important lesson is that young people do not need adults simply to hand them a microphone. They need mentorship, access, trust, and the opportunity to turn ideas into action.
We often tell young people that they are the future. But climate change is not a future problem. It is already shaping our present.
The environmental decisions being made today will affect my generation and those that follow for decades to come. Yet the people who will live longest with these consequences often have the least influence over them. This is why I have come to believe that climate change is not only an environmental issue. It is also a children’s rights issue.
When we think about children’s rights, we think about education, healthcare, and safety. Rarely do we think about the right to inherit a healthy environment. Yet a child cannot fully enjoy any of those rights if the world around them is increasingly threatened by environmental degradation, pollution, and climate change.
A child who cannot breathe clean air, drink safe water, or look toward the future with hope is a child whose rights are already being compromised. Every child deserves more than survival. Every child deserves the opportunity to flourish on a living planet.
A vision for a sustainable future
The world I am growing up in is different from the world of my parents and grandparents. Climate change is accelerating, technology is transforming how we communicate, and young people can connect across borders in ways that were once impossible. Our solutions must evolve too.There is something I believe is still missing from climate action today: Trust.
We need to trust young people with responsibility. We need to invite them into conversations not simply as symbols of hope, but as partners in shaping the future. We need greater investment in environmental education, youth-led initiatives, mentorship, and opportunities that allow young people to turn concern into action. And we need to be willing to learn from what does not work.
My own journey has taught me that there is no single campaign, speech, clean-up, or initiative that will solve the environmental challenges we face. Real change is built through repeated action, collaboration, reflection, and the willingness to improve.
Most importantly, we need to recognize that protecting the environment is also about protecting childhood itself. Because every child deserves to inherit a world where nature is not a memory, but a living reality.
November 2026