Let's celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity
The theme of the 2020 International Day for Biological Diversity is “Our Solutions are in Nature”.
The year 2020 was defined as a 'biodiversity super year', but because of the Covid-19 pandemic, major events dedicated to Biodiversity protection have been postponed to a later date. The current pandemic has shaken the international biodiversity agenda but has also revealed our total interdependence with the living world, and our global interconnectedness.
Our shared destiny as human beings living on Earth is irreversibly linked: we need each other, and this observation must now unite and bring us together. We are totally interdependent on healthy biodiversity for our own health, our economy, our food and our well-being. Our responsibility is to care for the life on Earth and to enable the conditions for its transmission to future generations. At the same time, the links between biological diversity and cultural diversity are more important than ever, as we are reminded of our intimate relationship with the environment in which we live - whatever form that takes.
Find out more about what UNESCO is doing to protect biodiversity, and see the online panels with leading experts from UNESCO and other organizations, as they discuss the links between coronavirus and biodiversity, possible ways to regenerate ecosystems and other aspects of protecting biodiversity in these new circumstances.
You can also see the webinar held on 22 May 2020 by the Wildlife Institute in Dehradun, India, 'Disaster and World Heritage with a Focus on pandemics'.