The danger now is that we merely try to get back on track and restore business as usual. What we ought to restore instead is wild nature and our respect for the natural world.
In this post we explore how Mali’s new Biosphere Reserve fits into an important global picture of the critical need for natural areas. This need has been made more evident by the COVID-19 pandemic that has raised awareness of how degraded ecosystems increase human vulnerability to catastrophic events.
The new reserve will be 4,263,320 hectares, about the size of Switzerland or almost 5x the size of Yellowstone National Park; and represents a 26% increase in protected area coverage for Mali!
The coronavirus pandemic is now sweeping across the Amazon. With no modern healthcare for this modern disease outbreak, the Yawanawá Tribes’ vulnerability increases daily. If we are to end the many environmental emergencies that we now confront, we must take care of nature’s best guardians.
In the 1960s South Africa of Apartheid, when non-white people were segregated and subjugated, our founders (Magqubu Ntombela and Ian Player) worked together in the wilderness and, with a team of many races and cultures, saved the white rhino from extinction.
Environmental justice depends on human justice. You cannot have a world that protects nature without protecting its people first. Black Lives Matter.
Our backyards and neighborhoods are teeming with wildlife, whether you know it or not.
There is a critical message trying to cut through the tragedy and turmoil of the pandemic, a message that needs to go viral
We have a Nature Emergency like never before experienced…we need a Survival Revolution like never before imagined.
The safety of our delegates and the larger community is our prevailing concern as the world confronts the emerging COVID-19 pandemic; with that in mind, we are postponing WILD11, the 11th World Wilderness Congress, which was scheduled to take place in March 2020.
