End of Year Review 2020

As we start to wind down 2020, we would like to express our best wishes to all of you for a prosperous 2021 filled with new opportunities.

Despite the unpredictable challenges this year, we remain strong and are committed to working together for a better future – to protect the planet and people. We feel incredibly fortunate to share our mission with each and every one of you. If there’s one positive from 2020, it is the rising awareness that long-term sustainability is no longer an option.

The Long Run journey has continued throughout 2020:

We joined forces with Preferred by Nature. This was yet another exciting milestone in the history of our organisation, supporting our ambition to become the world’s leading private nature conservation network.

To support our close-knit community, The Long Run team have held over 200 hours of weekly hangouts for members to come together, learn, share, brainstorm, and not feel so isolated. Amid the ever-changing crisis, it has been great to hear glimmers of hope and opportunity throughout the year.

Our members proved staggering resilience and commitment to the 4Cs. Landscapes were joined in a once-in-a-lifetime conservation win in Brazil, new community enterprises were funded in Costa Rica and South Africa, a forest was planted in East Kenya, new commerce strategies made conservation more resilient from Hawaii to Indonesia, and in New Zealand Tahi established a biodiversity index. Most importantly, our members each demonstrated that their priorities lie firmly with people and conservation, even when tourism is paused.

Our Regional Hubs have continued to grow and in February 2020, the inaugural Southern African hub was a great success. Due to COVID-19 we were not able to hold the planned physical regional hub meetings but in November 2020, we held virtual meetings instead. These are crucial to support our members within our mission taking consideration of the new context, identify key areas of collaboration regionally.

The Long Run community has grown this year and we’re delighted to welcome new members and partners to The Long Run family. In 2020, we have welcomed a total of 14 new members and 5 Travel Partners:

6 Fellow Members – Batu Batu (Malaysia), Tswalu Kalahari (South Africa), Samara Private Game Reserve (South Africa), Lengishu (Kenya), Leopard Hill (Kenya), Arijuju (Kenya).

7 Affiliate Members  – Connecting Spaces (Switzerland), Canopy Power (Singapore), Broadloom Group/Highlands Dinner Club (USA), Half-Earth Project (USA), Transformational Travel Council (USA), Earth Company (Japan/Indonesia), WaterBear Network (Netherlands).

1 Group Member – Basecamp Explorer (Kenya)

5 Travel Partners – Blind Experiences (Italy), Thika Travel (Netherlands), Consciously Connected Travel (UK), Blueflower (Hong Kong), Dolomite Mountains (Italy).