World Biodiversity Day 22nd May - International Year of Biodiversity - Center for Environmental Activisim

The World Biodiversity Day (International Day for Biological Diversity) is a United Nations– proclaimed day for the promotion of biodiversity issues celebrated on 22nd May every year across the world.

Year 2010 Declared - International Year of Biodiversity: The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity to celebrate the importance of biodiversity and highlight the different threats facing this irreplaceable natural wealth across the globe. This is vital for current and future human wellbeing.  The International Year is an opportunity to celebrate progress made so far in protecting biodiversity, and also recognize that we need to do more to promote creative solutions to reduce threats to biodiversity.UN calls us to do more and reminds us that it is time to act NOW.

 Objectives of IYB

• Raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity for human well-being and promote understanding of the economic value of biodiversity
• Enhance public knowledge of the threats to biodiversity and means to conserve it
• Encourage organizations (and through them individuals) to take direct or indirect biodiversity conservation activities
• Reporting on the possible failures for not achieving the Target
• Prepare the ground for communicating the post-2010 target(s)

You are an integral part of nature; your fate is tightly linked with biodiversity, the huge variety of other animals and plants, the places they live and their surrounding environments, all over the world.

You rely on this diversity of life to provide you with the food, fuel, medicine and other essentials you simply cannot live without. Yet this rich diversity is being lost at a greatly accelerated rate because of human activities. This impoverishes us all and weakens the ability of the living systems, on which we depend, to resist growing threats such as climate change.

The International Year of Biodiversity is a unique opportunity to increase understanding of the vital role that biodiversity plays in sustaining life on Earth.

History :
From its creation by the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly in 1993 until 2000, it was held on December 29 to celebrate the day the Convention on Biological Diversity went into effect. In December 2000, the date was shifted to commemorate the adoption of the Convention on May 22, 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, and partly to avoid the many other holidays that occur in late December.

Climate Change on Biodiversity: Recently, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), indicated that climate change is likely to become the dominant direct driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. Current climate change estimates predict increases in temperatures of 1.4°C to 5.8°C by 2100.
How it Will Effect:  This will affect species in several ways such as: changes in distribution; increased extinction rates; changes in reproduction timings; and changes in length of growing seasons for plants.
Reason For effect: The rich variety of life on Earth has always had to deal with a changing climate. However, the unprecedented pace of change we are presently experiencing is so rapid that a great number of species can not adapt  fast enough to the new conditions, or move to regions more suited for their survival due to habitat fragmentation  In fact, recent estimates show that up to a million species may become extinct as a result of climate change.

Role of Biodiversity – action required – How it Will Help us : Biodiversity can help to reduce the effects of climate change on the world’s population and ecosystems. Indeed, the links between biodiversity and climate change run both ways: biodiversity is threatened by climate change, but biodiversity resources can reduce the impacts of climate change.

It is therefore crucial to conserve biodiversity that is especially sensitive to climate change, preserve habitats so as to facilitate the long-term adaptation of biodiversity, improve our understanding of climate change and biodiversity linkages, and fully integrate biodiversity considerations into mitigation and adaptation plans.
If the threats of biodiversity loss and climate change are tackled together, the prospects for adapting successfully to the challenges of the coming decades will be very much improved. This constitutes the overall message for this year’s celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity.