Month: March 2021

There is no doubt, Planet Earth is experiencing the highest atmospheric CO2 concentrations that have not been equalled for millions of years, with resulting temperature rises threatening the balance of life and the collapse of everything that gives us security.

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ANIMONDIAL, the specialist consultancy supporting the travel and tourism businesses to better protect animals and nature, acknowledges the Climate Emergency, and offers a means for the tourism sector to embrace the “silver bullet” to lessen climate change and save ourselves.

This requires much more than just counting and reducing carbon output, it requires the better protection and regeneration of the natural systems that already absorb carbon and bring stability to life on Earth.

Professor Schellnhuber, Director Emeritus at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, speaking at ITB Berlin earlier this month, acknowledged that nature is our “silver bullet” to combating climate change. He acknowledged nature’s ability to absorb carbon and maintain ecological balance, advocating a complete change in global priority-setting, whereby animal and nature protection underpins all human activity.

Whilst tourism can exploit nature, wildlife, and the limited natural resources, if managed well, it brings value and investment to animal and nature protection, and ecosystem services. Tourism can be a force for good and through cross-sector effort, tourism could become the driver for meaningful change. ANIMONDIAL helps guide travel and tourism businesses to make the right choices to Build Back Better for Animals and nature.

Humans and domesticated animals now account for 95% of all biomass on Earth, with wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians being about 5% (Bar-On et al., 2018; Elhacham et al., 2020). Human activity has already altered over 70% of the Earth’s land surface (IPBES, 2019) and more than two-thirds of the oceans (Halpern et al., 2015) through the loss of biodiversity and habitat degradation (IPBES, 2019). This has already resulted in an average 68% decline in population sizes of vertebrate species (WWF, 2020) and 1 in 5 recorded animal and plant species facing extinction (IUCN, 2020). Humanity is already consuming 1.6 times more resource than the Earth can naturally provide (Global Footprint Network), and if nothing is done to lessen the impact, nature’s ability to prevent atmospheric CO2 overload and spiralling global warming, will be severely compromised (C. Bradshaw et al., 2021).

Scientists, NGOs and governments have been telling us for years that humanity must seek to better manage its impact. Various global initiatives have tried to bring structure and interpretation to the required efforts (UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Aichi Targets, the Triple Bottom Line, etc.) but as acknowledged by Anna Pollock during ATTA’s AdventureELEVATE Virtual Europe, these have all failed to achieve their goals – crippled by a lack of commitment, collaborative action, an overabundance of targets and a lack of sector practicability. Later this year, CoP15 on biological diversity, and CoP26 on climate change, may well set more targets, which could well fail, but perhaps we should instead focus on priorities rather than trying to address every challenge at once?

Whilst it is easy to become overwhelmed and disillusioned by the mounting evidence of the Climate Emergency, there is hope. Hope that through our concerted efforts, we can lessen negative impact, better protect and regenerate nature, and improve the Earth’s ability to retain ecological balance. Businesses, not only governments, must step-up and adopt sustainable practices that better protect the life on which we depend.

ANIMONDIAL does not claim to have all the answers, but it does have the vision and the drive to work with others, combine knowledge and efforts, to simplify complexity and overcome challenges, and the ability to deliver meaningful change. In the months and years ahead, ANIMONDIAL will do what it can to connect, inform, inspire, and empower sustainable and regenerative tourism that prioritises the better protection of animals and nature – but we cannot do this alone.

What can you do?

Reconnect with nature

As a part of nature ourselves, we must provide opportunity for travellers to reconnect, understand, appreciate and respect nature as our lifeline for wellbeing and prosperity.

Safeguard individual welfare

Ensuring all animals involved in holiday or vacation offerings / excursions have a life worth living. Where a respect for life on Earth starts with recognising and safeguarding their individual and species-specific needs.

Overcome industry challenges

Alternative to ‘stop sale’, work with your partners and suppliers to develop responsible alternative experiences to those activities with animals evidenced to compromise animal welfare and survival.

Protect threatened species

Underpinning biological diversity, efforts must seek to prevent the killing, wild-capture, trade and sale of animal and plant species threatened with extinction, and to better protect endemic fauna and flora.

Invest in nature

Bring much needed support and value to community-based animal protection and nature conservation, encouraging local people to value wildlife and natural habitat alive, not dead.

Together we can Build Back Better for Animals, where nature-friendly tourism is part of the solution to lessen the global problem of climate change.

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» Learn more about ANIMONDIAL’s Build Back Better for Animals! Sign up to the initiative and received information and exclusive offers on trainings and services.

REFERENCES

• Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., and Milo, R. (2018). The biomass distribution on Earth. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 115:6506–6511. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1711842115
• Bradshaw CJA, Ehrlich PR, Beattie A, Ceballos G, Crist E, Diamond J, Dirzo R, Ehrlich AH, Harte J, Harte ME, Pyke G, Raven PH, Ripple WJ, Saltré F, Turnbull C, Wackernagel M and Blumstein DT (2021) Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future. Front. Conserv. Sci. 1:615419. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419
• Elhacham, E., Ben-Uri, L., Grozovski, J., Bar-On, Y. M., and Milo, R. (2020). Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass. Nature 588, 442–444. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5
• Global Footprint Network (2021)
• IPBES (2019). Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Paris: IPBES Secretariat.
• WWF (2020). Living Planet Report 2020. Gland: WWF.