MOVE.BG has backed the global initiative “Leaders' Pledge for Nature”, which includes more than 60 business, financial, civil, and scientific organizations from around the world as well as over 70 countries and the European Union. The movement gives 10 pledges to nature with the aim to reverse the trends of biodiversity loss by 2030 and to restore human-nature balance by 2050. Among the main commitments are pursuing green recovery as a road after the coronavirus, conducting a reform of the financial and economic system, implementing sustainable financing as well as creating a system of accountability and robust and effective review mechanisms.
According to the “Leaders' Pledge for Nature” initiators, we are in a state of planetary emergency due to climate change and biodiversity loss. Therefore, we have to implement urgent measures and actions that involve all stakeholders: not only public authorities, but also representatives of business, science, and civil sector.
Sasha Bezuhanova, founder of MOVE.BG, explains MOVE.BG decision to join “Leaders` Pledge for Nature”:
“We know pretty well the results of human interventions in nature - the global warming and the increase of the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, 80% deforestation, and 50% biomass loss for less than a century, the altered habitats of the animals, the emerging of new diseases. After HIV, Ebola, and SARS, COVID-19 is another virus that is transmitted from animals to humans and is a direct result of our harsh intervention into the Earth's ecosystems.
COVID-crisis mobilized the world in an unprecedented way and the experience in managing it with no delay should be applied to address the environmental crisis.
Urgent action is needed today and the same scale of engagement of leadership, academia, and communities to prevent potentially more destructive consequences than that of the virus. It requires significant political acts and economic reforms, but also our collective wisdom and commitment to providing financial, media, and economic mechanisms. Last but not least, it requires a change in our personal habits to live with the understanding and responsibility that the Earth gives us life, food, and environment for development. That She is our home.
We, at MOVE.BG. are joining the "Leaders Pledge for Nature" because we consider it a key platform in facilitating the world engagement in the topic and pledge our program work on stimulating green business and zero waste living to the cause.”
The participation of an NGO in the “Leaders' Pledge for Nature” initiative means a commitment to work in support of pledges' fulfillment - all or part of them, depending on the organization's profile. The pledges' realization can be done through various forms, such as organizing educational formats, publishing articles, conducting campaigns to put pressure on the authorities to keep their promises, creating media campaigns to engage more people on the topics of the climate crisis, and biodiversity loss.
MOVE.BG works systematically in support of sustainable development. We conduct educational formats about green and zero-waste ways of living, support innovative green businesses and initiatives, publish special notebooks with tips for introducing environmental practices at home and work as well as disseminate important information on our blog. At the beginning of the year, we conducted a special “Mission: Water”, through which we analyzed the challenges to preserving water resources in Bulgaria, as well as looking for innovative solutions to important water problems. Moreover, at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, we initiated two NGO coalitions: for a green restart of the Bulgarian economy after the coronavirus and in support of green transformation through innovation.
Leaders' Pledge for Nature
According to the United Nations, the population of mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles decreased by 68% between 1970 and 2016 as well as 85% of wetlands and 66% of marine territory have been lost so far. Therefore, the Earth experiences enormous and permanent pressure from human activity. To stop and reverse these negative processes, the initiators of “Leaders` Pledge for Nature” gives 10 important commitments. The first point is the promise for a green recovery after the coronavirus.
“We commit to putting biodiversity, climate and the environment as a whole at the heart both of our COVID-19 recovery strategies and investments and of our pursuit of national and international development and cooperation.”
The other 9 pledges are:
- Development and full implementation of an ambitious and transformational post-2020 global biodiversity framework for adoption at the 15th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15);
- Redouble efforts to end traditional silo thinking and to address the interrelated and interdependent challenges of biodiversity loss, land, freshwater and ocean degradation, deforestation, desertification, pollution, and climate change in an integrated and coherent way, ensuring accountability and robust and effective review mechanisms, and lead by example through actions in our own countries;
- Transition to sustainable patterns of production and consumption and sustainable food systems that meet people’s needs while remaining within planetary boundaries;
- Aligning our domestic climate policies with the Paris Agreement and the objective of Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century as well as strengthening climate resilience of the economy and promoting convergence between climate and biodiversity finance;
- Ending environmental crimes by fighting organized criminal groups, such as the illicit trafficking of wildlife, and timber as well as n, reducing the demand for illegal wildlife, timber and by-products, and engaging with local communities to ensure sustainable solutions for people, nature, and the economy;
- Mainstreaming biodiversity into relevant sectoral and cross-sectoral policies at all levels, including in key sectors such as food production, agriculture, fisheries and forestry, energy, tourism, infrastructure and extractive industries, trade, and supply chains;
- Transform and reform economic and financial sectors to achieve the wellbeing of people and safeguard the planet, including by implementing sustainable finance mechanisms;
- Commit that policy will be science-based and will engage the whole of society, including business and financial sectors, indigenous peoples and local communities, environmental human rights defenders, local governments and authorities, faith-based groups, women, youth, civil society groups, academia, and other stakeholders.
“Leaders' Pledge for Nature” is not legally binding, but it is an important step and a common effort on a global level ahead of the major UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), which was postponed by one year due to COVID-19. COP 15 is one of the most important international events as it is expected to be signed a global plan for saving nature and the environment.
For a green restart of the Bulgarian economy
It is time for a green restart of the Bulgarian economy and its transition from resource-intensive industries to green business models. Funds from the EU post-COVID-19 recovery mechanism - “Next Generation EU” as well as those from the Green Deal can help make this transition a successful journey. Therefore, MOVE.BG has initiated a coalition “For a Green Restart” that includes “Greenpeace-Bulgaria”, WWF Bulgaria, “Institute Circular Economy”, and MOVE.BG.
The coalition has brought together over 50 of Bulgaria's leading experts in the fields of green startups and innovation, climate, the circular economy, energy as well as biodiversity, and agriculture. They have generated more than 130 ideas for a green restart of the Bulgarian economy. Read the recommendations here.
