Today, October 11, 2021, started the first part of the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15 CBD) in Kunming, China. Besides the Climate Top (COP 26) in Glasgow later this year, this conference of the world community is the most crucial one for securing the living conditions on our planet. The “Post-2020 global biodiversity framework”, the common targets to be reached by 2030, are on the agenda. It should include the 30×30 Goal, already supported by more than 70 nations, to protect 30% of the global land and sea space representing the different ecosystems and habitats, by 2030.

As the mission of Linking Tourism & Conservation (LT&C) is to make the tourism industry a leading actor for achieving a globally functioning and sufficient network of protected areas in order to reverse severe biodiversity loss, we are strongly committed to the 30×30 Goal and like to work together with everybody likeminded:

LT&C is a nature conservation NGO supporting the expected UN-Goal of creating a global protected area network by 2030, which covers representatively 30% of the different marine and terrestrial ecosystems and habitats on earth (the 30×30 Goal). LT&C works for making the tourism industry a leading actor implementing the 30×30 Goal by 

• Identifying and profiling best cases (LT&C-Examples), where tourism is supporting financially, politically or by ways of education the establishment and development of protected areas;
• Mainstreaming LT&C-Examples by promoting and communicating them in (nature interested) traveller circles and by offering educative study tours to LT&C Example destinations (in cooperation tour operators, which are members of LT&C, and who are involved or are providers of such examples);
• Developing incentives that LT&C Examples are getting replicated, their providers support each other and that the creation of such examples can become an accelerating movement;
• Partnering with conservation as well as tourism-related local, national and international (governmental and non-governmental) organisations, institutions and companies supporting the 30×30 Goal;
• Finding ways that LT&C-Examples become an official status within the UN-Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for reaching the 30×30 Goal;
• Creating a global base of members from both tourism and conservation of all levels of society becoming actively involved in our mission.