The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) members consist of thousands of growers of flowers and ornamental plants around the world who are together united by one essential goal – promoting the place of plants in people’s lives.
AIPH hosts several conferences, webinars and events such as the International Grower of the Year award throughout the year. Read about these along with the latest news about the association’s activities.
AIPH’s key aim is to stimulate demand for ornamental trees, plants and flowers worldwide. We are committed to supporting growers in achieving this by protecting and promoting the interests of the industry.
Tipping points for transformative change towards a Nature Positive Economy
Trinity College Dublin.
GoNaturePositive! is a new research programme with the overarching objective of addressing the serious challenge of biodiversity loss due to unsustainable economic activity.
GoNaturePositive! will undertake research, establish trial sites, and engage with stakeholders to provide clarity on operationalising the emerging concept of Nature Positive. The World Urban Forum, WUF, considers Nature positive to mean enhancing the resilience of our planet and societies to halt and reverse nature loss. This brings attention to the announcement by G7 leaders that “our world must not only become net zero but also nature positive, for the benefit of both people and the planet.”
Graphic by Nature Positive. Visit www.naturepositive.org.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provides a more demanding definition of Nature positive. According to the IUCN Nature Positive Initiative (2023), the definition is to “Halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline and achieve full recovery by 2050”.
There are many ways to deliver this goal. Actions must increase the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, and ecosystems so that by 2030, nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery.
A key part of this recovery includes the ability to meaningfully and reliably measure and report on the status of nature.
The GoNaturePositive! project, funded through the EU Horizon Europe research programme and led by Trinity College, Dublin, builds on the global Nature Positive initiative, with a particular focus on the multi-scale transition to a Nature Positive Economy (NPE).
The programme runs from Jan 2024 for four years and starts by defining what the term Nature-Positive Economy means.
The world’s economic systems do not adequately recognise the value of nature to planetary and human health, yet the restoration of nature presents enormous economic opportunities. GoNaturePositive! considers what a nature-positive economy looks like from various perspectives, such as public policymakers, large and small businesses, environmental bodies, and the general public at all levels (global, EU, national, and sectoral).
AIPH is participating on this programme’s Impact Board, joining influential leaders from policy, business, and civil society who are committed to science-based research and innovation actions that will halt and reverse nature and biodiversity loss with immediate impact.
One of the five pilot cases for the GoNaturePositive! project explores nature in the urban context, which is of particular interest to the AIPH Green City initiative.
Bringing nature into urban-built infrastructure can seem challenging. Small interventions, such as Pocket Forests, can increase an urban landscape’s capacity to support nature.
On the grounds of Trinity College Dublin, where the formal launch of GoNaturePositive! was held, a small piece of land has been planted with Irish native trees and shrubs, including Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), Crab apple (Malus sylvestris), Alder (Alnus glutinosa), Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus), Spindle (Euonymus europeaus), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), and Hazel (Corylus avellana).
This compact mixture of trees and shrubs forms a dense forest in a very small space that provides habitat and food for a wide variety of birds and insects. Within the forest, the soil is protected from compaction and nurtured by rainfall capture and leaf litter collection to support an underground world of biodiversity of worms, mycelium and other microorganisms.
Other pilot cases in the GoNaturePositive! project, involving 20 partners across 14 countries, consider gaps in agri-food and agri-ecology, map new farming practices, explore regenerative ocean farming/ aquaculture, assess the value chain-carbon insetting of sustainable forestry, and undertake a market analysis of sustainable of nature positive tourism.
