Thank you for joining us at Sandy Heath Quarry. It was a pleasure to share our ongoing restoration project, dedicated to developing and supporting a thriving heathland🌾
President Wildlife Habitat Council | President and CEO World Environment Center | Author of Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning
At the UNEP-WCMC Nature Action Dialogues last week, I swung from cynicism to optimism over the course of two days of presentations and discussions. The cynical side of me heard the same conversations about the responsibility of the private sector to act for nature, the absence of support from C-suite leaders and, the paucity of available data to inform decision-making. My optimism sprang from observing a distinct but subtle shift in tone and approach in the ever-evolving nature space which suggests the exuberance post-COP15 has calmed, and the focus is moving from idealistic and unattainable positions to more realistic and achievable approaches. An example of this was Nadine McCormick, WBCSD – World Business Council for Sustainable Development sessions on goal setting that sought to dig into the real challenges faced by corporate nature managers in the space. The understanding that not all companies can aim for or reach the highest bar of setting nature goals is refreshingly honest and the promotion of ‘no regret’ actions aligns completely with the experience of Wildlife Habitat Council's 3+ decades long engagement with the sector. Another such moment came when Gavin Edwards of Nature Positive Initiative said that unless voluntary #biodiversitycredits are allowed to be fungible, there will be no market. This succinct summary was a perfect encapsulation of an issue currently dominating the nature world. In yet another discussion, the #mitigationhierarchy was fiercely reclaimed from being reinvented as a framing device for reporting by attendees with decades of experience deploying it in very practical ways. Pragmatism has entered the room. Updates from IUCN STAR Metric, the EU's Align project, and Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) and others were very valuable for those of us drinking from a firehose of nature information. Both keynote speakers, Matthew Agarwala and Bhaskar Vira presented new ways of looking and thinking about our work. But the highlight for me was not in the hallowed halls of Magdalene College, Cambridge where the UNEP-WCMC meeting was held but in the rainswept hills of a nearby quarry. At Carolyn Jewell invitation, Ellen McKee, BirdLife International and I toured a restoration site at Tarmac's Sandy Heath Quarry where we met Enrique Morán Montero who oversees restoration at Tarmac sites across the UK. Guided by their conservation partner RSPB's Peter Bradley, we toured the project that is restoring the ecosystem with smart ecological techniques that should result in a thriving heathland for years to come. Experiencing both the nature recovery and the absolute pride of the employees involved in the restoration was a breath of fresh air and a real inspiration. Finally, it was great to meet new people like Megan Sim, Margot Greenen, Rob Wreglesworth, Will Wardle, Elvis Acheampong MSc., LLB., PMP, Dr Stephanie Hime, Annelisa Grigg and see old friends like Josiane Bonneau, Mark Johnston and others.