As a teenager, every year at the start of the rainy season, Jessa would wake up at 4 a.m. to celebrate the Feast of the Forest. “It’s a massive community event,” she says. “We’re all hauled in gigantic garbage trucks and taken up to the mountains to plant trees.” When she was 21, she went to the United States to work with EarthCorps, where she met youth environmental leaders from other countries. Then she returned home to create the Centre for Sustainability PH in the Philippines (CSPH), a women-led youth environmental conservation NGO. “We believe the best way to ensure the sustainability of our island is by legally protecting our natural resources,” Jessa says. She works with local people to help them understand how their lands are being ravaged by illegal logging, mining, monocropping, and poaching. Now 29, the heart of Jessa’s work is focused on conserving the forests. “We want to conserve as much forest as possible in the next 10 years,” she says. “If we as youth all act together, support each other, and help each other rise up, the impact we can have is unimaginable.”