There's a Little Less Nature Online for World Wildlife Day

You may see fewer trees and animals when you're scrolling through your social media feed today. In honor of World Wildlife Day, many groups are erasing nature from their logos.

For the #WorldWithoutNature campaign, many companies, nonprofit organizations, and teams are removing animals, plants, water, and any other image of nature from their branding. The goal is to highlight the loss of biodiversity around the world and show how important nature is in everyday life.

Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the campaign kicked off last year when more than 250 brands took part, directly engaging with 55 million people.

The WWF is missing its iconic panda logo, leaving just a blank white space.

"#WorldWithout Nature aims to highlight the dramatic loss of biodiversity globally and the social and economic risks it poses. During these difficult times, it offers a chance for us to unite in support of people and our planet," Terry Macko, senior vice president, marketing and communications at WWF, tells Treehugger.

Macko points out that, as found in the 2020 Living Planet Index, the population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles have seen an alarming average drop of 68% since 1970.

"The campaign leverages brands and their supporters around the world to raise awareness around biodiversity loss and build critical mass momentum to influence governments’ decisions on the future of biodiversity," Macko says.

"As governments around the world gear up to agree on a new global agreement for nature as part of this year’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15 in China, WWF is calling on leaders to step up to the challenge of delivering an ambitious global plan to tackle biodiversity loss and set nature on the path to recovery in this decade."

Last year, the campaign was aligned with WWF's 60th anniversary. 

"At WWF, we believe it is possible to create a future where people and nature thrive when we all come together," Macko says. "#WorldWithoutNature really embodies that spirit by providing an inclusive platform for brands to lend their voice to our mission."

Disappearing Nature

The Nature Conservancy removed the oak leaves from its logo, leaving just a green dot.

"Our planet faces the interconnected crises of rapid climate change and biodiversity loss. We have years, not decades, to address these existential threats," the group explains on its website, outlining climate change goals between now and 2030.

Those goals include reducing or storing 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, restoring natural habitats to help 100 million people at risk of climate-related emergencies, and conserving nearly 10 billion acres of ocean, 1.6 billion acres of land, and more than 620,000 miles of rivers.

Other conservation groups have joined in, removing birds and plants and other symbols of nature. They all explain that they are drawing attention to the important role nature plays.

BirdLife International, a partnership of more than 115 conservation organizations working to conserve and understand bird species, removed the tern from its logo.

Teams Take Part

Many sports teams—primarily European soccer clubs—also kicked their animal mascots offline for the day.

The Leicester Tigers removed their big cat, Mansfield Town football club erased its stag, and the Bristol Bears have booted their bear.

The wolf disappeared from the Warrington Wolves' shield.

Businesses Jump In

Some businesses joined the campaign, scrubbing their logos of animals and nature.

Purely Pets Insurance removed the "pets" from its name and its logo. Bird & Blend Tea Company erased its bird. Rowse Honey made its bee disappear.

Social media company Hootsuite removed its owl mascot, saying, "During these challenging times, we must unite and look out for each other & our one home we all share."

Greta Thunberg weighed in with her thoughts on Twitter:

We're today discussing a #WorldWithoutNature as if it meant that "our children won't be able to see pandas in the future" or that "we won't be able to eat certain types of food."

A world without nature is no world. Stop separating "humans" and "nature." Humans are part of nature.

The WWF responded, "Agreed - thanks for being part of the conversation. We cannot thrive, or even survive, in a #WorldWithoutNature."

Editor's Note: If we had a tree in our Treehugger logo, we'd definitely make it disappear today.