Celebrations for the Future

Events provide uncommon opportunities to turn the attention of a range of stakeholders to think and act on biodiversity. Compared to 1992 when the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted in Rio de Janeiro, general awareness on biodiversity, ecosystems and their contributions to sustainable development has increased tremendously but still requires further work. 

Tracing the history of the pre-Convention and Conventions processes, the formative stages of implementation, the 2010 biodiversity targets and the current Aichi biodiversity target related actions, the seminar on “25 Years of Action on Biological Diversity” called for future actions during the next decade. The seminar was attended by a range of stakeholders from students, local communities, policy makers, legal professionals, scientists and members of the media with one key objective – how to make biodiversity a people-issue and not a science-issue.

The role of campaigns like #NatureForAll, the relevance of education and communication in reaching to larger stakeholder groups was highlighted with a request to the participants to celebrate biodiversity everyday. Commemorating the day, a number of competitions were held for the students, professionals, local communities to highlight the importance of biodiversity in our day-to-day lives. 

In addition, local biodiversity management committees (established under the Biological Diversity Act in India) were honoured for their work in preparing local registers of bio-resources, innovative approaches to conservation and establishing local level governance systems.

As part of the International Day for Biological Diversity, several celebrations were held in India that commemorated 25 years of India’s actions towards securing biodiversity for the future, through its legal framework process. The event held in Bangalore, India focused on key achievements globally, nationally and locally in securing the future of biodiversity.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Balakrishna Pisupati, Regional Vice-Chair of IUCN CEC called for better engagement of youth in conservation action and suggested a new and interesting curriculum to be developed to teach conservation – using subjects like data science, artificial intelligence, resource economics, biomimicry and others to make conservation and biodiversity science more attractive, relevant and progressive.

During the event, a story-book on biodiversity, in local language, the threatened species list of the Province and a set of fillers on biodiversity for use in national television were also launched. The event ended with a call that nature is for all and it is our collective responsibility to conserve and protect our ecosystems and biodiversity.