After being hosted the last 5 years by Arendal municipality in its Kunnskapshavn, LT&C this month moved its office in Arendal to the “Sustainability House” at Torvgata 7. This is a co-worker house right at the marketplace of the town. In the basement, you are welcomed in an alternative (“unwrapped” products) shop-cafe, and offices in open landscape, as well as meeting rooms, are on the upper floors. Good reasons for LT&C to move here are that everybody is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is potential for synergy between the different organisations and companies. While others are working with climate, renewable energy or sustainable production and consumption, Linking Tourism & Conservation (LT&C) continues its focus on the biodiversity SDGs.
In times where global awareness about the need of protecting both climate and biodiversity is rapidly growing, LT&C’s mission as conservation organisation makes more sense than ever: to ensure tourism supporting the completion of a global network of protected areas as a key tool to safeguard the diversity of nature on our planet. Therefore we are an organisation that is strongly aligned with what the world had agreed to under the UN Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD): To protect, by 2020, 17% of the land and 10% of the oceans, representing the different ecosystems and habitats. We expect that the new goals to be decided this year for 2030 will be more ambitious. To protect at least 30% of the world for safeguarding biodiversity should be a goal, the tourism industry, which most benefit from national parks and other protected natural areas, should also naturally support.
LT&C continues as a voluntary organisation carrying out its mission with a very lean administration. We do not have any paid staff but bases all of its activities on the voluntary work of its Board and other members.
