It's great to be part of such a special community!
My story is a little different so I don't have the background many of you do but I have seen enough of the planet over the last few decades or so that I know I want to do our part to preserve and protect it to the best of our ability. With this in mind, this is our plan...
We are a family focused on community-centred conservation. Our plan is to bring together all the people that care around the world. The more successful we are at this, the bigger difference we can make. We understand that an integrative approach is essential to realise Earth as a place where people, animals, and the environment exist in sustainable harmony.
Our Parks Project and Portal - A Journey To Preserve and Protect Our Most Treasured Places Around The World
Our overland journey will take us across 100 countries to the National Parks of the world, with the aim to preserve and protect our most treasured places. By capturing the stories these parks and their people tell, we will shine a light and support various social and environmental impact projects. We will inform and educate people of all ages of the challenges our parks face and how they can get involved while also inspiring them to take action and protect the natural spaces within their own communities. This is our way of helping to move the needle and protect what we love.
There are two pieces to this that work in tandem but will allow for long-lasting impact well after the journey is over which is important to us.
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Our Parks Project - 1. The actual journey, with a focus on the stories and projects we help to facilitate within the global National Park ecosystem. 2. Generate interest in what we’re doing by educating, informing, inspiring and protecting which will, in turn, let people know about Our Parks Portal
Examples of some of the types of projects we will help to facilitate: the first detailed map of coral reefs, reef regeneration, returning land to indigenous people, the examples given here by the Whitely awards, the technology used to combat the illegal wildlife trade, a further array here, projects in Lebanon and Uganda, revolutionising fishing nets, acoustic monitoring in forests and underwater, a worldwide map of rewilding projects and electric motorbikes used to catch poachers
- Our Parks Portal - A portal to bring National Parks, their partners and members of the public together to allow for the sharing of ideas, expertise and resources globally. This will also allow people from around the world to participate whether that be by leading conservation projects, volunteering time and expertise, donating funds, technology transfer, partnering, or just by suggesting ideas. The best bit is that it will lead to a steady stream of impactful projects to continue well after we have finished.
We are focused on getting results, species protected, habitat restored, and livelihoods in harmony with a healthy environment.
As part of our journey, we will form our own initiatives but we actually believe the most effective thing to do is to reduce duplication of the effort that doesn't move the needle and not compete but rather collaborate with others who ultimately have very similar goals. Therefore, we are looking to partner with initiatives that are already established, like WildTeam, those we believe in, have a solid track record and continue to grow. It's relatively early days but we're starting to form a network of like-minded organisations now so that we have a solid foundation that we can build upon. We have some good contacts throughout the world with various organisations and companies and will be forming partnerships with many of them very soon.
Our website will be finished in the next couple of weeks and after that, we will get started on the Portal.
If you would like to follow along for now, CLICK HERE, we're very much under the radar at the moment and will be until we are ready to launch properly. All of your support would be greatly appreciated!
Any input, ideas, help, thoughts, or questions, please let me know. All are welcome.
All the best,
Matt
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Hi, @Matt. Welcome to WildHub! I'd like to hear more about the project. To share with more members, you can bring it up at one of the monthly socials.
@Thirza Loffeld @Lize Gibson-Hall
Hi @Matt yes definitely be amazing to have you at our next social - 13th July, 12pm or 4pm BST if you are available. Would love for you to share with us all more about the project and how people can get involved!
Hi @Lara Reden , @Lize Gibson-Hall this sounds like a plan. I'll be on the road in July, having a baby around that time in August and my parents are planning to be around in that window in September (I haven't seen them in almost three years) as I live in Hong Kong (long story) but October could work! : )
@Matt, whenever you can make it is good! Sounds like an exciting few months.
Hi @Matt oh wow what a lot to look forward to I wish you all the best! Yes definitely keep an eye out and only join if you are ever able to :)