Mark May 22 on Your Calendar!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | By Karennn (:

Biodiversity is important for life on earth; it is the variety of life on earth. It sustains life and create insurance for the future. Humans have the power to either destroy or protect diversity on earth. What humans have done to harm the earth is irreversible, but we can prevent it from happening.

These four statements, taken from the International Year of Biodiversity site, explain how biodiversity is important to us and how WE can make a difference. This year, 2010, is the International Year of Biodiversity (logo is shown to the right).
The logo of Year of Biological
Diversity

On top of that, the United Nations declared May 22 to be the International Day for Biological Diversity (also known as IDB). On this day, countries around the world take part in bringing awareness of the importance of biodiversity and how every individual can help to sustain it.

Every year, they develop a theme to focus on.  This year, it was dedicated to development and poverty alleviation (a poster shown at the bottom left).

It was announced that the biodiversity target for 2010 was:


"to achieve... a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth."

How does development and poverty relate to biodiversity? 

A poster for this year's IDB
They might relate more than you think.  The general definition of development is that all people have the opportunity to live a good life.  Poverty is when people are unable to meet those needs.  More than 3 billion people rely on marine biodiversity and 1.6 billion people rely on forests and fruits grown from those plants.  That being said, biodiversity is the key that reduces poverty; it provides people with basic necessities (such as food and medicine) and services (such as climate control and purification).

Countries around the world including Canada have stepped up to do something about sustaining the biodiversity of earth.  In Ontario, we hosted a forum in Serpent River Basin (map shown below) to raise awareness and protect biodiversity during mineral exploration.  An ‘eco-fair’ was held where organizations displayed information about this issue in various stands.  The objective of this event on IDB was to explore mineral practices and their impact to meet the expectations of the public for biodiversity.

The approximate location of Serpent River
Biodiversity plays an important part in humanity.  It does not only include extinction of animals; it directly affects our everyday needs such as food.  I think that IDB is an important day to create awareness to the world about how our daily activities affect biodiversity, which can later affect us.  I think that it is great that this day is international, being held in different parts of the world.  This shows that humans DO care about the environment and can work together to create a positive impact on the diversity of our ecosystems. 

RESOURCES:
http://www.cbd.int/idb/

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