Lockdown. Three months in. What was due to be a busy quarter of fieldwork has, like everything else, been stalled by the pandemic. As I write, my calendar reminds me that, had all gone to plan, we would have just launched Green Fins Japan in Onna Village, Okinawa. Similarly, Reef-World’s partners and supporters across the industry are facing their own challenges brought on by the pandemic. We’re all well aware of the usual platitudes we could insert here: unprecedented, draconic measures, uncertain times, yada yada etc.
Wfh got me like…
Personally, being in a different city from most of my friends and family (and a recent car crash taking away our mode of transport) means the gradual lifting of UK lockdowns isn’t currently making much difference to the Hobson household. We remain landlocked for the foreseeable future with the cats – Dave and Tig – doing their utmost to keep us sane while we work, eat, sleep, repeat.
But, enough of the doom and gloom – there’s plenty of that on the news already. We’re all aware of the storm we’re weathering so, instead, I want to focus on some of the silver linings we’re noticing during these “strange times”.
As you might imagine, looking after Reef-World’s comms during this time has kept me just as busy as ever – if not more so: how can you reach and engage with your audience when you can’t meet them face to face, if not through good communications? As such, we’re using this time to review our materials, plan new developments and update our distribution strategy – among other things – to make sure our conservation message is as impactful as possible ahead of travel returning to the much anticipated “new normal”.
Reef-Worlds work through the Green Fins initiative (which we manage in partnership with the UN Environment Programme) helps meet the Sustainable Development Goals 12 & 14
And it’s not just us who is using this time to pause, prepare and think about how the industry can be improved when people begin to travel again. Sustainability – a word which has been on everyone’s lips for some time now – really seems to be in the spotlight as people consider what the future of travel might look like. It's been interesting to see the green shoots of sustainability pushing through; particularly when it comes to the travel press. More and more publications are not just mentioning responsible travel as a ‘nice to have’ but really exploring what the term means and what we can all do to improve the sector’s sustainability. Would this ramped up awareness have come anyway? Perhaps. But it does seem that the pandemic has boosted the public’s awareness more quickly than had things just ticked along as they were before. Just one example which demonstrates how seriously the press is taking this issue is that Condé Nast Traveller has just appointed its first ever Sustainability Editor: a significant milestone and one we’re delighted to welcome here at Reef-World.
We’ve also been thrilled by the outpourings of support we’ve received form talented professionals with a bit of extra time on their hands. This initially came about when we connected with The Community PR Initiative – a movement which matches PR professionals with charities who could benefit from their support and expertise – who connected us with the fantastic Rae: a PR professional with significant travel sector experience who is helping to put Reef-World’s work on the radar of key journalists.
Aceil Haddad, co-founder of The Community PR Initiative, told me: “Reef World is such an incredible charity, who are educating on the importance of marine conservation which has been so hit by climate change, reckless depositing of harmful materials and overfishing… now more than ever we need to push the climate agenda to conserve our natural resources! Which is why it has been such a delight to introduce Rae, a passionate environmentalist and PR professional, to the team. Thank you so much Reef World for coming to us, and a huge thanks to Rae for all that she is doing - we’re so proud of her!”
Volunteers, apparently, are like buses – as the saying goes – and we’ve had a flurry of activity in recent weeks. Rae introduced us to Julia; a PR superstar who is helping us with social media content development and pitching Reef-World to journalists and bloggers who might be writing stories about #PlasticFreeJuly. Shortly after, Charlie came on board and has been doing a stellar job researching and preparing a database of content for us to use throughout our comms.
A big thank you to all our superSTAR volunteers (get it?)!
Our friends at Escape the City (ETC) also helped us put the word out that we were currently taking on new volunteers and, safe to say, we were blown away by the response. At a time when the news has been fairly dire, it’s been amazing to see the huge number of people who care enough about our oceans that they’re motivated to support our conservation mission with their time and expertise during lockdown and beyond. Thanks to ETC, Izzie and Amber have also come into the Reef-World fold; helping with our content management strategy and prepping the upcoming launch of an exciting new Green Fins product (no spoilers – watch this space!) respectively. To top it off, we’ve also been joined by the lovely Harriet: an architect who is using her design skills to help us increase our capacity as we review and update the Green Fins materials.
So, as you can see, this cloud has had some silver linings for us. While none of us know what will happen in the coming months, I hope we’ll continue to see things moving in this positive direction. Because everyone making small (or even big!) changes to prioritise sustainability – whether it’s people offering their time to support conservation projects, travellers taking more steps to minimise their impact, journalists helping to raise awareness of responsible travel or businesses across the sector improving their sustainability policies – will have a huge cumulative impact. Like most people these days, I’m sick of the phrase “the new normal” but, when this new normal does come, let’s hope it has sustainability at its core.
