In a year where Nepal nearly tripled its wild tiger population, and the Ivory-billed woodpecker was confirmed extinct… I can say that it’s certainly been a year of ups and downs.
As we started to dare to believe that we had left the pandemic behind us and tourism began to open up with certainty, we felt ourselves and the marine tourism industry sigh an almighty sigh of relief. However, it wasn’t quite the big bang return we anticipated. Normality, safety, security; it all seemed some way off.
At Reef-World, we grappled with reconnecting with our global network of environmental champions, starting to assess the situation we found ourselves in. The reality was that while the marine tourism businesses were starting to reopen, they were far more focused on getting staff back into the operation to welcome their customers again than thinking about sustainability. The government agencies running Reef-World’s Green Fins initiative worldwide had new work plans. Some of which, understandably, given the uncertainty of the tourism sector, no longer included Green Fins activities. We began to see that in many ways we were starting rather from scratch again.
Then, what seems like moments later, we launched the Green Fins Hub. A global digital platform which gave our grassroots initiative — which was heavily reliant on human implementation — global scalability. As with any digital product, there have been teething problems but we have learnt so much about the industry we exist to support. Most importantly, though, we saw how this platform could deliver on what we dreamed it would — providing small businesses and the local communities they employ around the world with practical and tangible solutions to major environmental challenges. That was a FEELING!
Having been two of the people working with a handful of dive businesses in Phuket, Thailand to get Green Fins off the ground back in 2008, JJ (co-Director) and I suddenly saw the bare bones of what we’ve been grafting at for more than 10 years become globally accessible to all the enthusiastic business leaders we had previously felt we were somewhat failing. I went to the US dive trade show DEMA in November and heard business leaders talk about the Green Fins Hub as an “out of the box experience”, one that’s “tried and tested, and works”, ”bringing the knowledge of the experts behind Green Fins to your doorstep”. I had a real sense of achievement.
Bouncing off the back of this, we reconnected with all the Green Fins national teams around the world to train them on the use of the Green Fins Hub. This will help them to reduce the admin associated with their assessor roles, helps them to manage their Members easily and start to learn about what the data is telling us all. It was a great feeling to bring them something new and help them do what they do best — inspire change.
This year has seen staff members move on and staff members join us. Trustees have left their posts, and new and extremely experienced Trustees have joined, providing us with incredible new leadership energy. Funds have been lost, but (luckily) more funds have been secured. It’s just been one of those years, punctuated by incredible highs and dramatic lows. But I think this is just a natural part of growing as an organisation.
However, throughout all of this, the team who we’re lucky enough to be surrounded by has been steadfast. Every single day that I sit down to offer leadership to this organisation, the Reef-World team inspires and empowers me. Even on darker days, their dedication and love for our work buoy me up. I want to extend a huge thank you to them all, and the extended Reef-World team of consultants and environmental champions around the world.
Here’s hoping for a slightly less turbulent 2023… but no less fun, please!
Over and out for 2022!