Eline Leising

This community-led project has completely reversed the biodiversity decline of a vital freshwater ecosystem. Tonlé Sap is Cambodia’s largest freshwater lake and millions depend on the lake’s fish. Overfishing, habitat loss and climate change had driven stocks to dangerous lows. The turnaround came from those people who depend on the lake most. Local fishing communities, led by youth and backed by legal protection, created no-fishing zones during breeding seasons. They patrol the waters themselves, replant flooded forests and release thousands of fingerlings (Juvenile fish) back into the wild. The results: ⤷ Fish catch up by ~45% in the Phat Sanday community over three years, a clear sign of ecosystem recovery. ⤷ Families now harvest 30–40 kg/day, earning up to $40/day, thanks to healthier fish populations. ⤷ 115,000+ native trees planted, with over 190 hectares of flooded forest restored, critical spawning habitat. ⤷ Neighboring villages are now replicating the model, seeing similar boosts in food security and income stability. ⤷ Legal protection extended to 23,000+ hectares of community-managed fishing grounds, with a core 921-hectare no-take zone. The joy in the fisherman’s face says it all! #Conservation #Biodiversity #Fisheries #TonleSap #NaturePositive 📷 Southeast Asia Globe

128

12 Komentar

♻️ The #CircularEconomy is much more than the opposite to the "take-make-dispose" linear model. The loops have to be designed with certain characteristics. Here is my pitch. When I speak with governments or businesses, I try to shift the focus away from simply comparing circular economy to the linear model we all know. Instead, I invite people to visualize the loops — the flow of products and materials through production, use, reuse, disposal, and reintegration. But that’s just the beginning. A truly circular economy doesn’t just loop -it loops with intention. Here's how: 🔄 1. Loops are slow Design products to last. Circularity is not about keeping waste moving quickly—it’s about keeping materials and products in use for as long as possible. Durability, repairability, and reuse come first. 🎯 2. Loops are lean Only essential resources should be used—nothing extra. This is where sufficiency matters most, especially in high-consumption economies. You can't bend massive material flows—you must reduce them. 🏘️ 3. Loops are local Circular systems work best when waste and resources flow within local or regional ecosystems. No long-distance waste exports. Communities should benefit directly from the value kept in the loop. ☣️ 4. Loops are clean Toxic materials have no place in a circular system. They harm health, pollute ecosystems, and disrupt recycling by contaminating resource streams. 🌞 5. Loops are powered sustainably Circularity must run on renewable energy and make use of regenerative materials. It’s not circular if it relies on fossil inputs. 🌱 6. Loops are regenerative Most importantly, circularity should restore and improve. It's about building systems that make life better—for people and for the planet—not just doing less harm. read the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/dHBpwfXX

136

9 Komentar

Carbon credits may dominate the headlines, but Southeast Asia has an even bigger opportunity: biodiversity credits. As rePLANET recent recommendations show, these credits go beyond carbon—capturing ecosystem integrity, species richness, and resilience. More importantly, they can channel sustainable finance into conservation and community-based businesses, turning one-time grants into investable, scalable models. If designed well—with clear metrics, policy backing, and market transparency—biodiversity credits could become a powerful tool to align capital, conservation, and sustainable livelihoods across the region. The future of climate finance isn’t just carbon—it’s nature positive. https://lnkd.in/gERUwjcW

80

4 Komentar

Last week, I joined a workshop with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Circular Economy Taskforce, which is due to publish a consultation later this month. I've been eager to get involved after uncovering some worrying issues during Fighting Dirty's legal challenges of horribly polluting industries that claim to be part of the 'circular economy'. The taskforce has an overwhelmingly huge remit, being required to include the built environment, agri-food, chemicals & plastics, electrical equipment & electronics, textiles, and transport industrial sectors 😬. However, they are sensibly looking at cross-cutting themes that affect all of industry, like data availability, finance, skills and the role of public procurement. It was a lively event with lots of questions posed by attendees with similar concerns in their industries, not least my first love - construction. But I came away with two major concerns: ❌ The trade associations showed fierce opposition to calls for manufacturers to make products repairable, durable, reusable, standardised, or otherwise better designed to enable real circularity. One shameless Head of Sustainability insisted that better repairability for electronic products couldn't work and that the industry wouldn't survive if they had to stop cheap waste exports to developing countries. ♻️ There seems to be no attempt to create a definition of circularity that drives ambition. A product that is theoretically recyclable or is incinerated for energy recovery could claim to be 'circular' just as much as a product that has been thoughtfully designed for multiple cradle-to-cradle lives. Having seen this government's slavish pandering to industry, I fear they may be easily swayed and let polluters carry on dodging meaningful action, continuing to push the cost of recycling and incinerating excessive waste onto citizens via our Council Tax or recycling levies added to our bills (e.g. when you get a tyre changed), rather than requiring better designed, more efficient and durable products with vibrant reuse and remanufacturing opportunities. That would be an enormous missed opportunity for 'green growth', i.e. innovation, new skills and jobs, exportable products and expertise. I'm going to keep pushing for greater ambition and, when the consultation is released, I'll share the link so we can all have our say. #circulareconomy #waste #circularity #plastic #wastemanagement

41

8 Komentar

Could philanthropic capital help bridge the early-stage funding gap for durable carbon removal? Terraset thinks so. The non-profit recently launched a revolving fund. The fund uses philanthropic capital to make pre-purchases of carbon removal credits from project developers across a range of removal pathways. Once the credits are delivered, Terraset will re-sell the credits to other buyers and then plow the money back in to fund more pre-purchases from early-stage projects. This model could create a highly catalytic, evergreen fund to accelerate carbon removal scale up. I wrote a little more about how the revolving fund works, and its first round of purchases, over on Trellis. Article 🔗 in comments. Thanks to Terraset CEO, Adam Fraser for the interview!

66

15 Komentar