First of two parts
Jennifer Morris, chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy, writes:
“As a lifelong conservationist and now CEO of The Nature Conservancy, I am an impatient optimist. I hear the clock ticking on climate change. I see the threats to biodiversity and loss of nature with clear eyes. I listen to the stories from vulnerable populations most directly and immediately affected by droughts, intense storms, and other increasingly severe natural disasters.
“And yet, I am optimistic. I believe that the global community can come together and enact the right policies, shift industries toward a more sustainable path, and empower local communities to protect the resources that sustain them, for one, simple reason: I believe in the power of humanity to act.
“Khan Khentii Protected Area, Khuh Nuur, Mongolia.
“In Mongolia, the health and economic well-being of people is tied to the health of our local environment. To better our lives we must protect nature.
The nature crisis is a human crisis
“I’ve always been a nature lover. Even as a kid, I would spend my summers exploring the small forest near my family’s home in Atlanta, Georgia, scribbling in my notebook the species names of birds and trees I could identify. But, 27 years ago, as an English teacher in a small rural community in Northern Namibia, I began to fully understand our capacity for building a better future by protecting nature.
“After a day of helping women collect firewood and digging boreholes to find access to fresh water from the aquifer, my friend Ria and I sat outside under a full moon to look at pictures from her youth. She shared photos of her community surrounded by lush forests and told stories about fishing and harvesting fresh corn.
“Her life as a grown woman was much different: Her home was surrounded by drought-stricken fields, and she spent much of her day traveling far distances to collect water and firewood for her family, distances that continued to grow due to deforestation. These long journeys came with increased risk of violence, less time at home, fewer hours studying in my class, and no chance to find a paying job.
“That night I began to understand on a deeper level how connected our health and economic wellbeing are to the health of our local environment. From that moment, I set out to devote my career to protecting nature and bettering the lives of all who depend on it.
“And I can’t imagine a more urgent time to be wholly dedicated to this work than now.
“A tree fights to survive in the harsh desert of Sossusvlei, Namibia.
Nambia Tree climate change and biodiversity loss pose enormous risks for communities and economies around the world. Failure to act is to be complicit in challenges that have persisted for generations.
“Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the greatest threats the world faces. These twin crises pose enormous risks for communities and economies around the world. A failure to act on them is to be complicit in exacerbating the challenges we face as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention global conflict, income inequality, and other hardships that have persisted for generations. Action is not only a moral obligation, it is an existential imperative. And all paths to a better world depend on our ability to protect the lands and waters that provide us all with clean air and water, healthy food and a stable climate.
Collaboration is our strongest lever for change
“Change at a meaningful scale cannot be achieved by any one organization alone. It cannot even be achieved by many like-minded organizations. Scientists, indigenous peoples, and environmentalists have been shouting from the rooftops about the degradation to our ecosystems and changes to our climate for decades. We were warned about severe impacts to future generations. Well, those future generations are here now. And our efforts to date, while important and meaningful, have been insufficient to achieve systemic change.
Continued at https://thevoice.us/radical-collaboration-essential-for-impact-on-climate