| Green Travel News |
Among the highlights of a just-concluded summit of environmental experts and travel industry leaders in the Maldives was a commitment by British Airways to only use fish from sustainable sources in its in-flight meals and the opening of talks between the government of the Maldives and BLUE Marine Foundation, which could see the creation of the largest marine conservation area in the world.
The symposium was hosted at luxury green resort Soneva Fushi in the Maldives by Six Senses Resorts & Spas, a leading eco-friendly hospitality company based in Bangkok, to address “practical, effective and profitable ways to combat global warming.”
Among the speakers at the event were President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, Jonathon Porritt, founder-director of the Forum for the Future, Stefan Schurig of the World Future Council, Mike Mason of Climate Care, Chris Gorell Barnes of the BLUE Marine Foundation and Jonathon Counsell, head of environment at British Airways.
The tone of the symposium was set in the first speech of the event by Jonathon Porritt. He stressed that the environmental movement has largely failed in its mission of advocacy— partly because of an inappropriate use of language. “We have taken the sacred out of nature,” he commented. “We have taken the deeper meaning out of the way we have talked about nature. To what extent has our language contributed to that secularisation of nature? Have we lost the true essence of what sustainability is about?”
Chris Gorell Barnes, co-founder of BLUE, said: “I am very optimistic that the talks that began at the Six Senses Eco Symposium will lead to something very special being created. We have to protect our oceans before we entirely empty them of fish.”
President Nasheed of the Maldives applauded the work of Six Senses in advancing his country’s goal of making the Maldives carbon neutral.
Six Senses Chairman & CEO Sonu Shivdasani said, “Our challenge now is to bring the thought leadership we have seen to a much wider audience. Over the course of the next few months Six Senses will be examining the best ways to achieve that.”
