Nature positive: lots of rhetoric, little reality

(Press-News.org) New research led by Griffith University argues that the term nature positive is being adopted more for political rhetoric and less for any real-life improvement in nature conservation, posing a new risk to biodiversity. 

The study, published in Nature Portfolio Journal njpBiodiversity explores the tourism sector as an example. 

The team, led by Emeritus Professor Ralf Buckley with coauthors from universities in Australia, Chile, China and Japan, analysed the fine-scale political processes in the lead-up to CBD COP16, the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which started in late 2024 and resumed in early 2025. 

They distinguish “small-t tourism” - such as visitors and mobile tours in national parks - from “Big Tourism”, which consists of multi-billion-dollar global corporations and political associations.   

“Only 0.01% of the global tourism sector makes net positive contributions to conservation,” Professor Buckley said.   

“Big Tourism, which is largely owned by the US$13 trillion private equity sector, has net negative effects via land grabs.” 

According to the researchers, few tourism enterprises make net positive contributions to conservation, and “nature positive” terms were being used for “marketing greenwash, to delay and avoid environmental fees and regulations, and to lobby for land grabs in public protected areas”. 

Professor Buckley suggests Australia has adopted “nature positive” political terminology, but in practice has failed to implement past promises to establish a new independent Environment Protection Agency. 

“These findings are very timely in the lead-up to the Australian federal election, given the importance of environmental concerns to the electorate, but the very low performance by both major parties,” Professor Buckley said.    

"Despite nature positive political rhetoric, in reality the government significantly weakened its flagship environmental legislation just two days before the start of the election caretaker period.”  

The study ‘Nature positive rhetoric, risk and reality: sector-scale political ecology at CBDCOP16’ has been published in njpBiodiverstiy. 

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