Industry project "Biodiversity in tourism: Protect to discover"

Project goals

• Development of a toolkit for the creation of biodiversity strategies for tourism companies.
• Development of company-specific biodiversity strategies and concrete action plans for the participating pilot companies.
• Implementation of pilot projects based on the analysis results and the developed biodiversity strategies or derived measures.

Protection of biodiversity and an intact nature is of particular importance

Global populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by more than 70% in the last 50 years. Around one million of eight million species are currently endangered – and humans are contributing significantly to this by transforming and destroying ecosystems and overusing resources. It is therefore extremely important that all sectors of the economy develop decision-making and management tools for dealing with biodiversity. The tourism industry is particularly affected here, as intact nature is part of the product and therefore has a special responsibility.

The aim of Futouris members is to maximize the contribution of tourism to the preservation and restoration of biodiversity in tourist destinations, to reduce negative impacts and to anchor concrete measures to this end in all processes of the core tourism business.

Development of biodiversity strategies as a basis

In Phase 1 of the industry project, a guideline for developing biodiversity strategies tailored to tourism businesses will be developed in cooperation with partners WWF Germany and mascontour and implemented in pilot operations. By the end of the project, each participating pilot company will have a company-specific biodiversity strategy and action plan.

WWF Germany is developing a practical guideline for biodiversity strategies and action plans specifically tailored to the tourism value chain. Based on this, Futouris is developing a toolkit with in-depth information and best practice examples from the pilot companies. Both the WWF guideline and the Futouris toolkit will be made available to the tourism industry.

Mascontour will support the participating pilot companies in applying the steps in the guideline and in developing the action plans.

The biodiversity strategies and action plans are the basis for the implementation of implementation projects in phase 2 of the industry project. These will be coordinated with the Futouris member companies on the basis of the results from phase 1.

The biodiversity strategies and action plans should be aligned with the requirements of CSRD reporting and be usable for companies that are currently or will be required to report in the coming years as part of CSRD reporting.

Project activities

The following activities are planned

• Conducting hot spot analyses in the participating pilot companies and deriving generic results for the industry.
• Developing and providing materials for the creation of company-specific biodiversity strategies together with the participating pilot companies.
• Supporting the participating companies in creating their own biodiversity strategy and action plan.
• Obtaining and evaluating feedback from the participating pilot companies from the application within the project.
• Developing and implementing pilot projects based on the analysis results and the developed biodiversity strategies or derived measures.