The corona virus has got our travel behaviour under control this year - lockdowns and travel restrictions still make travelling difficult. But what will the future bring and how will this crisis affect the future development of tourism? Will we continue to travel as we have done so far, or will we manage a transition towards sustainability?
At the International Naturefriends meeting in Janjanbureh (The Gambia) in January 2020, the focus was not only on the 125th anniversary of the Naturefriends movement but also on celebrating two successful years of Landscape of the Year Senegal/The Gambia. This event was followed by a two-weeks trip to the most important venues and partners of the Landscape of the Year, which was regularly reported on in various NFI media.
Transforming tourism is the demand of the day - this is what the "Transforming Tourism Initiative" is calling for from the World Tourism Organisation UNWTO on the occasion of World Tourism Day on 27 September. The global network of NGOs, tourism professionals and academia identifies concrete measures on how the tourism industry can emerge from the current COVID-19 crisis in a more sustainable and strengthened way. It calls for rapid and committed action on the part of UNWTO - and the involvement of all stakeholders in a spirit of partnership.
Naturefriends demand a human European asylum policy instead of further refugee camps on the territory of the European Union.
The corona virus determines our lives - and also our ways of travelling. Curfews and border closures have paralysed the tourism industry. Now the borders are opening again, tourism is picking up speed again. But how will the corona crisis affect the future development of tourism?
It is time to think about how we want to travel in the future and to initiate a turn towards sustainability! In this sense we are launching the campaign #tourismusneudenken (rethink tourism) in the social media channels of respect_NFI.
Over the last 125 years, Naturefriends all around the world have implemented thousands of activities to champion this wide variety of causes: fighting for the right of way, developing environmentally and socially sustainable tourism and leisure-time offers, and promoting protection of the environment and nature, climate justice and international solidarity.
The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating all too well that unequal societies go hand-in-hand with human suffering, fragile economies and delicate democracies.
The Naturefriends movement stands for solidarity and responsible acting. These values must be upheld especially now, in these difficult times!
We call on everyone: think especially of the particularly vulnerable groups in our society and protect them by staying at home! Each and every one of us is called upon to do so.
Leading, communicating, mediating – tour guides are the interface between travellers and locals, between two often very different cultures. Thus tour guides bear a great responsibility with regard to the handling of human rights – a new booklet of Naturefriends International supports them in this.
The south of Mali is heavily affected by climate change. The increase in periods of drought leads to massive losses in agricultural production; sometimes the harvest is completely lost. The storage of agricultural products is therefore becoming increasingly important. Also the women's cooperative in the village community of Finkolo, which has been successfully cultivating vegetables for several years with the support of Naturefriends, urgently needs a storage building for its products.
