This week Save The Med published our 2020 Annual Report. In it we share the highlights and results of our project work along with images from some spectacular underwater encounters.
We present our funders and corporate partners who make our work possible, share quotes from #GenerationSaveTheMed and more.
This year, in his yearly ‘Letter from the president’, Brad Robertson, co-founder of Save The Med, also makes a big ask of us all. An ask that has little to with supporting an NGO (which, let’s face it, is likely crossing many minds right now), and everything to do with life itself:
“2020 was the year when the world changed. As a new virus rapidly spread around the globe, our lives began to look and feel much like a science fiction movie. Throughout the year we became used to lockdowns, home confinements, curfews and drones warning us to remain inside.
Plastic gloves, face masks and social distancing became part of our everyday lives. And so did a new type of anxiety and agonising fear of loosing our loved ones. As a society, this year we experienced unimaginable uncertainty, despair and relentless loss. Yet as with all things life, in the midst of its’ duality, we also found a deepened love, connection and a new vision.
2020 forced us to stop, to be still and to reevaluate our priorities. Without asking if we were ready for it or not, it taught us important lessons which have the power to transform our reality and change the course of our future if we decide to embrace and act upon them.
Lessons that can guide us towards a society where we restore our relationship with nature and, with that, reduce the effects of both new pandemics and of far bigger threats to all life on earth. In facing such threats, nature is our greatest ally and nature solutions, such as healthy seas, a thriving ocean, lush sea meadows, restored forests, protected mangroves and abundant biodiversity, are the most powerful and most magnificent tools available to tackle the global crisis.
In 2020 we saw that, as a society, we can take immediate action when we decide that the price of inaction if too high. Now immediate, science-based action is what is urgently required.
To halt escalating biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, climate emergency and the cascade of consequences which are already following in many places around the globe, we must make responsibility diffusion unacceptable, ecocide a legal concept and regeneration of natural ecosystems our number one priority for investments and our ultimate measurement of success.
Instead of educating youth about global issues which we then leave in their hands, we must strive to solve those problems alongside them and become the brave role models, visionaries and leaders they need in order to create change together.
So while most of us long to leave the painful mess that 2020 was behind us, today I ask us not to. For everyone and everything that was lost in 2020, I ask us all to remember this year and embrace its’ lessons.
To make this year a turning point and ensure that 2021 becomes the year we took pioneering steps to heal the damage we have caused, to re-evaluate how we define and measure our successes, to redefine and diversify our economies, reconnect with our communities, regenerate the soil and the seas and ultimately, re-write the story of our species.”
Brad Robertson, Save The Med Foundation
We invite you to explore the campaign DefineHumano.com to learn more and to participate in the regeneration of your local community. Visit SaveTheMed.org and go to the News section to download the full Annual Report.