05 Jun 2024
World Environment Day 2024 on June 5 is focused on the themes of land restoration, halting desertification, and building drought resilience. This year's slogan, “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration,” reflects the urgent need for collaborative efforts to rejuvenate our planet and secure a sustainable future. The intrinsic relationship between golf and nature positions the sport uniquely to drive nature-positive outcomes.
Recognizing that Earth is an integrated living system and that human health and happiness depend on the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, actors across business, finance, government, and civil society need to take concerted action to radically restore the natural world.
We are in the middle of the UN Decade of Restoration, and in December 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework set the ambitious goal of reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. This milestone marks the beginning of a global transition towards a community rich in natural wonder, magnificence, and diversity. The principles of this framework are being integrated into policy and practice worldwide. For example, in the UK, developers, land managers, and local planning authorities will soon need to demonstrate biodiversity net gain from developments.
This evolving sustainability landscape offers exciting opportunities for businesses, industries, and land stewards—including golf. Golf courses, with their diverse ecosystems, can be hubs for land restoration, drought resilience, and biodiversity enhancement, all factors aligned with the themes of World Environment Day 2024. 
Minthis Golf Club
Minthis Hills in Cyprus, for example, has a holistic approach to connect the resort to nature, which is protected by Natura2000. Working closely with landscape architects and horticulturalists, the resort uses only drought-tolerant native plants to enhance the landscape while irrigation comes solely from recycled rainwater and greywater from the nearby town. 
Glenelg Golf Club
Glenelg Golf Club in Adelaide similarly captures excess water from a local creek during periods of heavy rain to help reduce the risk of flooding at the local airport. This water replenishes an aquifer at the course and provides a summer source of water. The water storage ponds are also filtered by various native plants and provide habitat for local birds, frogs and turtles.
Golf, played on 39,000 courses across 209 countries, stewards roughly 5 million acres of land worldwide. About 50% of this land comprises natural and semi-natural habitats, such as woodlands, wetlands, and grasslands. These features provide essential ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, flood prevention, and heat and noise reduction for surrounding communities.
As urbanization increases, golf courses can play a crucial role in maintaining green spaces in densely populated areas and restoring damaged and poor parcels of land.
Governments and land developers are increasingly recognizing the potential of golf as green infrastructure. Golf courses are being used to cool cities, create green jobs, and restore degraded areas like landfills, mines, and quarries. By integrating biodiversity into the golfing experience, the sport can drive long-term, economically viable nature-positive outcomes.
To fully realize this potential, golf courses need to adopt nature-positive strategies that not only protect existing biodiversity but also actively restore and enrich habitats and ecosystems. From the initial planning stages to daily management practices, a range of nature-inspired projects are evolving across the golf industry. These initiatives include ecological surveys, habitat mapping, prioritizing native species, and educating golfers and the wider community.
Hoiana Shores
A great example of this is Hoiana Shores in Vietnam. This course was built on land that was previously agricultural and shrimp farms. The nutrients had been ripped from the soils and the landscape was nothing like the native dune systems that surrounded it after years of work and erosion. The golf course restored over 23 hectares of native scrub landscape, six hectares of native dune habitats, and over 40 hectares of native rough grasses. All of this work not only created an authentic golfing experience, but it also healed the land.
Kungsbacka Golfklubb
Existing courses all have role to play. With Project Rewild, Kungsbacka Golfklubb in Sweden has arranged 2800 m2 on the course as flowering pastures. This is a part of a project to rewild and strengthen biodiversity on the course which also includes adding insect hotels, a butterfly garden, a plan for maintenance of ditches and preservation of rare plants.
Dromoland Castle
Dromoland Castle in Co. Clare, Ireland, is similarly promoting biodiversity on the estate with nature-based solutions by identifying areas to transition into natural rough where species such as wild Irish hares can forage. These are generally connected to woodland to create corridors that encourage other species to co-exist such as pollinators with butterfly and bee activity. Importantly, the reduction in management and mowing of these areas cut down on emissions of harmful GHG's and allow them to become potential carbon sinks by sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it as soil organic carbon.
With its longstanding connection to landscapes and ecosystems, golf has the opportunity to showcase a positive commitment to nature restoration. By further integrating biodiversity into the playing experience, golf can enhance both the sport and the natural world. This World Environment Day, let us recognize the powerful role golf can play in our global restoration efforts and embrace the mantra that golf, sport, and society are truly #BetterWithNature and we are #GenerationRestoration.
Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration
Click on the links below for more examples from around the world
Jack’s Point Golf Club, New Zealand: 3 hectares set aside for wetland development
Xiang Shui Bay Golf Club, China: 19 hectares of lakes provide entire irrigation needs
Costa Navarino, Greece: Advanced water management and positive impact of the resort at Bay GC
Find more examples on the Sustainable Golf Highlights hub
