Sibthorp Trust - Keeping Environment on the Agenda
Tax deductible
This appeal is to benefit THE SIBTHORP TRUST and all donations will help increase its impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause. The Trust is taking this approach for funding because the current necessary restrictions on public gatherings prevent the conventional means of financial support from meeting participation.
We are not taking care of our home planet and this affects us all, but science can help.
Human-influenced climate change, unsustainable use of natural resources, destruction of ecosystems, decline and extinction of animal and plant species, unsustainable consumption and plastic pollution – all symptoms of our way of life in the 21st century. International research is now underway to establish whether viral mutations are encouraged by human mistreatment of the natural world.
One such virus, the current Covid-19 pandemic, is devastating the UK economy as well as public health. We must now think about the future, when our lives can resume with freedoms that don't compromise the health and welfare of others, or the natural environment that supports us. We have re-discovered that there is such a thing as society and that compassion, empathy and kindness in our communities are the things that give us the collective strength and resilience to go forward. Social isolation during lockdown has led many of us to re-connect with nature. There is a strong determination in many people to build-on, rather than lose, these learnings.
Keeping environment on the agenda has never been more important. Nature underpins everything we are and everything we do as a global civilisation but is often drowned-out in the noise of politics and economics and overtaken by the need for more immediate human welfare. It would be a missed opportunity to think of the future in terms of 'getting back to normality'; the old normal is what left us vulnerable to the pandemic. The current rhetoric is to learn from our recent mistakes: ‘Build Back Better’ and ‘The New Green Deal’, roll off the tongue easily. It is essential now that these slogans are backed up by actions that achieve a better future.
This GoFundMe page is to support the independent and pioneering work of the Sibthorp Trust, a charity established in 1991 to facilitate difficult discussions between politicians, industrial leaders, scientists, engineers, nature organisations and community groups, on conflicts and synergies between development and environmental sustainability. The charity has achieved much historically, including publishing ‘the Sibthorp Papers ’ and hosting high-level, cross-party political debates and public engagements hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby. The Trust has also had a strong connection with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), having played a key role in the development of the definition and understanding of the “Ecosystem Approach” as the primary methodology for delivering the objectives of the CBD. This included the elaboration of science-based tenets that form the basis of the original 12 principles adopted by the Convention in applying the Ecosystem Approach.
Your donation
Your donation will make a substantive difference to enhancing our collective thinking through the production of new guidance for an ‘ecosystem approach’ to the way we live. It will enable a series of ground-breaking, policy-influencing workshops, public engagements and actions to give environment its appropriate place at the forefront of decision-making. We will build on and enhance impactful conversations with influential individuals from the worlds of politics, business, finance and ecology and connect them to public thinking. In addition, the Trust believes the theme for the next CBD conference - ‘Ecological Civilisation: Building a Shared Future for All’ is highly relevant to its new set of 20 guidance topics and would seek to share these with the CBD community and, in particular, to an audience of students and young professionals. Your contribution will also enable you to join in as part of a network of supporters, free-thinkers and workshop participants, so you can be part of the change you want to see happen.
Do get in touch if you would like to get involved. Thank you for your support.
We are not taking care of our home planet and this affects us all, but science can help.
Human-influenced climate change, unsustainable use of natural resources, destruction of ecosystems, decline and extinction of animal and plant species, unsustainable consumption and plastic pollution – all symptoms of our way of life in the 21st century. International research is now underway to establish whether viral mutations are encouraged by human mistreatment of the natural world.
One such virus, the current Covid-19 pandemic, is devastating the UK economy as well as public health. We must now think about the future, when our lives can resume with freedoms that don't compromise the health and welfare of others, or the natural environment that supports us. We have re-discovered that there is such a thing as society and that compassion, empathy and kindness in our communities are the things that give us the collective strength and resilience to go forward. Social isolation during lockdown has led many of us to re-connect with nature. There is a strong determination in many people to build-on, rather than lose, these learnings.
Keeping environment on the agenda has never been more important. Nature underpins everything we are and everything we do as a global civilisation but is often drowned-out in the noise of politics and economics and overtaken by the need for more immediate human welfare. It would be a missed opportunity to think of the future in terms of 'getting back to normality'; the old normal is what left us vulnerable to the pandemic. The current rhetoric is to learn from our recent mistakes: ‘Build Back Better’ and ‘The New Green Deal’, roll off the tongue easily. It is essential now that these slogans are backed up by actions that achieve a better future.
This GoFundMe page is to support the independent and pioneering work of the Sibthorp Trust, a charity established in 1991 to facilitate difficult discussions between politicians, industrial leaders, scientists, engineers, nature organisations and community groups, on conflicts and synergies between development and environmental sustainability. The charity has achieved much historically, including publishing ‘the Sibthorp Papers ’ and hosting high-level, cross-party political debates and public engagements hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby. The Trust has also had a strong connection with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), having played a key role in the development of the definition and understanding of the “Ecosystem Approach” as the primary methodology for delivering the objectives of the CBD. This included the elaboration of science-based tenets that form the basis of the original 12 principles adopted by the Convention in applying the Ecosystem Approach.
Your donation
Your donation will make a substantive difference to enhancing our collective thinking through the production of new guidance for an ‘ecosystem approach’ to the way we live. It will enable a series of ground-breaking, policy-influencing workshops, public engagements and actions to give environment its appropriate place at the forefront of decision-making. We will build on and enhance impactful conversations with influential individuals from the worlds of politics, business, finance and ecology and connect them to public thinking. In addition, the Trust believes the theme for the next CBD conference - ‘Ecological Civilisation: Building a Shared Future for All’ is highly relevant to its new set of 20 guidance topics and would seek to share these with the CBD community and, in particular, to an audience of students and young professionals. Your contribution will also enable you to join in as part of a network of supporters, free-thinkers and workshop participants, so you can be part of the change you want to see happen.
Do get in touch if you would like to get involved. Thank you for your support.
Organizer
Chris Mahon
Organizer
THE SIBTHORP TRUST
Registered nonprofit
Donations eligible for Gift Aid.
