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Mount Etna, Europe's largest and most active volcano erupted on Feb 16th, sending up high fountains of lava which then rolled down the mountains eastern slope in Sicily, Italy. The explosive activity began back in 2019, getting much stronger two months ago. The current activity involves the south-east crater, which was created in 1971 from a series of fractures. The local airport of Catania has to close whenever ash fills the skies around the volcano. The benefits of a volcanic eruption include fertile farmland as well as flourishing apple and citrus trees.

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Sweden : A Swedish firm backed by investors including Spotify founder Daniel Ek plans to build a steel production facility in the north of the country that will be powered by what it describes as “the world’s largest green hydrogen plant.”

H2 Green Steel, which was established in 2020, will focus on steel made using a “fossil-free manufacturing process” and look to supply European manufacturers with its end product.
Source: CNBC

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New Zealand : are trying to use the current disruption from the Pandemic to strive for a more sustainable change and be more competitive some of the ways they are trying to do this is to introduce a departure Tax to address the high volumes of emissions , funding for tourism infrastructure on environmental criteria , allow department of conservation to fully protect the natural areas eg: Aotearoas and then to finally strength existing standards for self contained freedom camping

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More than €240 million allocated for walking and cycling routes in Ireland. Dublin will receive almost half the funding. A total of 468 projects will be funded across 12 local authorities. The work will involve reallocation of road space, cycling lanes and parking and wider footpaths. Funding will mainly be in the 4 Dublin councils and surrounding areas. This will be a great way for tourists to view Dublin and its surrounding areas.

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Across Cumbria local communities, businesses and grassroots organisations are being mobilised to map out ways that they hope will help it become the UK’s first carbon-neutral county. The county is aiming to decarbonise by 2037, an ambition initially supported by £2.5m of national lottery funding, awarded last August and to be drip-fed over five years, and it started January 2021. Tourism will be an area of focus, alongside housing, transport and agriculture. The national lottery funding is an injection of adrenaline at the beginning of a long journey,” said Karen Mitchell, CEO of Cumbria Action for Sustainability (Cafs). The funding was secured by the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, which was set up by Cafs in 2019 with the help of the county council. The partnership has 68 members tasked with leading the drive to cut emissions, including the Lake District national park authority. Achieving decarbonisation poses challenges for a county that in 2019 was visited by 48 million people. Visitors contribute £3.13bn to Cumbria’s economy and support 65,500 jobs. Tourism’s impact on its carbon footprint is largely linked to transport. In February 2020, the partnership commissioned A Carbon Baseline for Cumbria, which was produced by Professor Mike Berners-Lee, an expert in carbon footprinting – who also happens to live in Kendal.
Electric vehicle charging points and electric buses are also on the agenda. The national park has already installed charging points in many of its car parks, and is working with Cafs and other partners to map demand hotspots and the potential volume required to cater for visitors in the future.

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Rising sea levels in tourist hotspots is likely to have a great impact on these destinations in the future. Some of these destinations are at risk of completely vanishing, by the end of the century if sea levels keep rising. Extreme flooding is likely to become a regular occurrence in popular tourist destinations such as Amsterdam, Tokyo and New York. Flooding in Venice in 2019 caused an estimated 1 billion in damage. It is predicted that Venice will experience extreme flooding every 5 years until 2050.

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Visitors who go to Palau are now required to sign an environmental pledge upon arrival , which ask the visitors to act in an ecologically and culturally responsible way. The pledge is one of a number of incentives to make Palau the first carbon neutral tourist destination in the world. Palau Bureau of tourism has patterned up with sustainable travel international and slow food to implement more sustainable practice in the country such as sourcing more food locally ( gastronomic heritage) will be launched to encourage hotels and tourism companies to serve locally sourced ingredients and dishes. It will not only help to reduce the carbon footprint but by investing in domestic producers ,more economic opportunities will be created for the local community.

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In New Zealand the parliament commissioner  for the environment is urging the government to take advantage of the current covid situation to change the whole tourism industry in the country. His aim is to shift the current tourism model into a sustainability model by introducing emission taxes on departures, having more government funds, strengthening legislation to fully protect natural areas and the standards for self contained camping. The title he has given to this is
" Not 100% - but four steps closer to sustainable tourism" - 18/02/2021

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Tourism is mainly responsible for the litter and pollution in the Mediterranean beaches. Researches have warned about the impact of the current tourism model in the Mediterranean region, which has on the production of marine litter on beaches. Covid19 has taken advantage to rethink a new sustainable model, for it to be avoided. The health of the marine ecosystems is dying and it is leading to a loss of biodiversity. The Mediterranean region welcomes one-third of the world's tourism and it is been affected by environmental pollution and litter.

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Denmark is building an artificial island 60km off shore, to provide enough wind power for the entire country. It will house 600 giant wind turbines which will make use of the stronger winds out at sea. The island will be the size of 18 football pitches and could possibly be used to house huge batteries for energy storage. The Danish Government aims to complete construction by 2030. It will supply twice as much power as Denmark’s current offshore wind capacity. Denmark hope to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and aim to slash their carbon emissions by 70% by 2030.

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I look forward to your 'nuggets' of news relating to Tourism and the Environment this week