Love Our Earth 360

The purpose of this initiative is to rally our community around, and engage our tourists in, helping create the future of Eureka Springs. The stated mission is to have Eureka Springs be the first 'fully sustainable Love Our Earth 360 tourism community' in the nation! This vision for the future of our area is consistent with the history and culture of our great community and is in alignment with the hard work and plans put together by the Mayor's economic development task force. Our hopes are that together we can accomplish this ambitious mission, while at the same time diversifying our economy with 'green' businesses & continuing to grow our tourist business by making Eureka a must for all those individuals and entities passionate about sustainable development.

The United Nations adopted a resolution on September 25, 2015 titled "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." It contains 17 sustainable development goals that serve as a good framework for the pursuit of our mission. In order to accomplish this lofty goal, our efforts will need to be both coordinated & organic, unleashing the knowledge and energy of our entire community. We will all need to do our part, playing the roles of player, coach and cheer team as needed. Of vital importance will be the need to focus on unity of purpose, avoiding the trappings of divisiveness that seem to be so prevalent in our world today. A short phrase to remind ourselves of this is that we will choose to WALK THE COMMON GROUND FOR THE GREATER GOOD. As an example, regardless of your political, personal or religious persuasions, we can all agree; cleaner air, soil & water are much needed for the well being of all life on earth and future generations. 

The reason we want to engage our visitors in this initiative is simple. They love Eureka and they represent vast amounts of knowledge, energy and resources. If we help them 'catch the vision', some will want to get directly involved with us in marching towards the goal. One of our first agenda items will be defining, communicating and offering optional avenues of involvement. You might ask, 'why would they want to participate'? The answer again is simple. It's an opportunity to be involved in the evolution and transformation of a place near and dear to your heart. Our smallness works to our advantage in this case since they will be able to readily see signs and evidence of change each time they visit. Unlike many tourist destinations, you can easily 'put your arms around' our unique town.

Another early effort will be searching for teams and leaders for each of the 17 sustainable development goals. The good news is we already have some great folks in our community who are already passionate, knowledgeable, and 'at work' in many of the defined goals.

The chamber office is providing dedicated work space and personnel to help facilitate the participation of those interested in getting directly involved.  To set up appointments to learn more and or get involved, just email the chamber at loveourearth360@eurekaspringschamber.com or call 800-638-7352.