The Planet is in the midst of a crisis and it’s now or never!

Europeans have been conscious of adverse weather conditions in parts of America, Australia and the Antarctic for decades. Being constantly inundated about the Antarctic Ice Melt, rising sea levels, California wild fires and much more, many Europeans haven’t necessarily witnessed the sheer ferocity & magnitude of accumulation of generations ill effects on our ecosystems.

During the summer of 2021 you would have read about the raging fires that swept their way, most notably, through Turkey and Greece. Maybe you were personally exposed to the monsoon-type weather & flooding that besieged the British Isles. These, and countless other instances, are examples of Mother Earth literally weeping!

With Nature at a tipping point and in emergency, we are placing all life and planetary health in jeopardy. This coming decade has to be a turning point where we collectively pull together as a community and recognise the value of nature. As a group of responsible citizens, we need to place nature & biodiversity on the pathway to recovery and transform our world to one where people, economies and nature flourish.

Travel Matters is therefore excited to announce our collaboration with the Get Nature Positive project, whose overall aim is to continue to gain knowledge & improve positive impact on the Planet. Get Nature Positive is attempting to achieve this by working alongside a selection of Organisations who put the onus on International Governments, by asking them to implement a set of goals at international level that have been constructed by The G7. From there, it is the responsibility of these Governments to enact this message into a framework (The UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity Post 2020) that will trickle down through their country’s society and change the way that the private sector and communities can help the Planet’s rejuvenation.

The Group of Seven (G7) is an inter-governmental political forum that is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the United States. Their formation was devised in order to provide solutions to continued multilateral discourse and form political answers to global challenges. G7 leaders called for the world to become Net Zero and ‘Nature Positive’ in July 2021, releasing the following statement –

“We, the G7 Leaders, commit to the global mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We will act now, building on the G7 Metz Charter on Biodiversity and the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, championing their delivery, to help set the necessary trajectory for nature to 2030.”

The G7 & and their 2030 Nature Compact produced a set of four pillars that would assist governments to achieve these goals -

Pillar One, Leading the Transition to sustainable and legal use of natural resources:

We will shift incentives and use all appropriate levers to address unsustainable and illegal activities negatively impacting nature.

Pillar Two, Investing in nature and driving a nature positive economy:

We will work to dramatically increase investment in nature from all sources, and to ensure nature is accounted for, and mainstreamed, in economic and financial decision-making.

Pillar Three, Protecting, Conserving and Restoring nature, including through ambitious global targets:

We will support and drive the protection, conservation and restoration of ecosystems critical to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, and to tackle climate change.

Pillar Four, Prioritising Accountability and implementation of commitments for nature:

We will hold ourselves to account for taking domestic and global action for nature.

What can I do to help?

Get Nature Positive have streamlined this approach and created a list of actions & challenges that can be successfully implemented into any of the following sectors:

Buildings & Infrastructure
Fashion
Finance
Food Retail
Tourism
Water

…just click on ‘Your Industry Sector’. Here, you will find suggestions that can help you & employees realise how to reduce single-use plastics, education about nature-friendly sunscreens, redesigning products to use recycled materials, how to incentivise your supply chain and much more. We don’t have much time left, so it’s crucial that we all adopt more sustainable practices and endorse the likes of The Council for Sustainable Business (CSB) and their Get Nature Positive initiative.

Our actions are destroying nature at a rate that is faster than can replenished and we bear witness to the effects of how this is destabilising our societies. Due to an unrelenting degradation of our natural planet, we face such challenges as the loss of over half the global GDP and human lives & wellbeing…remember, the poorest and most vulnerable are always affected the worst! The climate crisis is symbiotically connected to the nature crisis and both need to be addressed simultaneously, so that there can be an evolution that sees a nature-positive, carbon-neutral future.

Your voice can be heard here!

Travel Matters Gets Nature Positive