Description
This International Day is part of the year 2020 defined as momentous for biodiversity with major events planned (and mostly postponed to a later date) such as the IUCN World Conservation Congress, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity or the Biodiversity Forum in UN New York. The current pandemic has shaken this international biodiversity agenda but also has revealed our total interdependence with the living world and our global interconnectedness.
In fact, a year ago, the recommendations of the first intergovernmental Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released at UNESCO Headquarters during the 7th IPBES plenary session, demonstrated the responsibility of human activities in the loss of biodiversity, which amounted to 75% for terrestrial ecosystems. The assessment also indicated that solutions existed and that it was not too late to act.
Scientists have warned of the links between the mismanagement of biodiversity and ecosystems and the risks of transmission of infectious diseases to humans, up to the risk of a pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this responsibility in a dramatic way and at a global scale. Alongside scientists, many other voices are raising, including political, from private sector and civil society calling for transformations and breaks with these processes that are destroying the living fabrics of the planet, creating unacceptable inequalities and threatening our common future and that of the younger generations.
This crisis shows us in a painful way our global dependencies and interconnections. Our common 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.
So, what lessons can we learn from this situation? What are the opportunities to accelerate a transformation towards a more sustainable and fair world, that of the Agenda 2030 implemented on a global scale?
UNESCO invites us to reflect on these issues on the occasion of the International Biodiversity Day by setting up online dialogues and conversations between experts, our networks, in particular our sites and youth networks, our private sector partners and artists. The aim is to share scientific assessment of the unprecedented health crisis we are going through, but also to come together in this period of great uncertainty around common values, to share the resources on which we can rely upon to be collectively resilient and to make the necessary changes.
The interventions will be organized around 5 themes:
- Introduction: Links between coronavirus and biodiversity: the scientific analysis
- What unites us : connecting around our shared values
- What changes are necessary ?
- What are the possible ways to regenerate ecosystems and restore our connections with biodiversity ?
- Closing: Sharing our solutions from nature
Speakers will answer the following questions:
- What is your view, what are your thoughts on the crisis we're going through?
- What changes are required of us?
- What are the opportunities to be seized?
- What practices should we give up? What has become unacceptable?
- What can we do to make change (and which change) happen?
- What obstacles can we encounter?
- What strengths and allies do we have to get through this and move forward?
Links between Coronavirus and biodiversity: the scientific finding
Speakers:
- Eduardo Brondizio, Co-chair of the IPBES’ 2019 Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
- Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Acting Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
- Serge Morand, CNRS-CIRAD Researcher, ecologist and evolutionary biologist
- Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, UNESCO
The panel, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, will answer the following questions:
- What is your scientific diagnosis of the pandemic?
- What is the role of research in the crisis we are going through?
- Is it possible to prevent the next pandemics and if so how and which approaches should be taken into account in the future?
What unites us : connecting around shared values ?
Speakers:
- Eric Julien, Founder Association Tchendukua
- Raphaël Mathevet, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Research Director
- Alice Roth, Founder and vice-president of the Co-MAB association
- Hélène Valade, Environmental Development Director, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH)
The panel, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, will answer the following questions:
- What changes do we need to make?
- What strengths and allies do we have at our disposal to get through this challenge and move forward ?
- What do you see as the major obstacles in a possible ecological transition?
What changes are needed ?
Speakers:
- Didier Babin, Chair of the French MAB committee and Team leader of the project post 2020 EU at Expertise France
- Dr Irene Hoffmann, Secretary of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, FAO
- Paul Leadley, Researcher, University of Paris-Saclay, IPBES expert
- Pierre-Yves Pouliquen, Director of Sustainable Development, SUEZ
The panel, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, will answer the following questions:
- What are your thoughts on the crisis we are going through?
- What changes are needed in relation to these emerging diseases?
- What changes do we need to make?
What are the possible ways/tools to regenerate ecosystems and restore our links to the living ?
Speakers:
- Tim Christophersen, Coordinator of the ‘Nature for Climate’ Branch at UN Environment, and focal point for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030
- David Obura, Founding Director of CORDIO East Africa, Mombasa, Kenya
- Berglind Orradóttir, Deputy Director of the GRÓ Land Restoration Training Programme, GRÓ International Centre for Capacity Development, Sustainable use of Natural Resources and Societal Change, Reykjavik, Iceland.
- Sir Tim Smit, Co-founder of Eden Project, Bodelva, Cornwall, UK
The panel, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, will answer the following questions:
- Can you tell us how COVID-19 has affected your work and share with us one lesson learned by your training programme or University from this COVID-19 outbreak ?
- What impacts do you think the COVID-19 crises has had on the appreciation of policy makers and the public at large of the importance of halting the erosion of biodiversity and natural capital?
- If you are given only one advise/action/solution to that could help build future societies in harmony with nature and biodiversity where restoration of ecosystems is a must and no more an option, what would it be?
Sharing solutions from nature
Speakers:
- Miguel Clüsener-Godt Director, Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences, Secretary of the MAB Programme
- Humberto Delgado Rosa Director of Natural Capital at the Environmental Directorate of the European Commission
- Mechtild Rössler Director of the World Heritage Center (WHC)
- Vladimir Ryabinin Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, Assistant Director-General of UNESCO
The panel, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, will answer the following questions:
- Can you tell us a bit about MAB and how it promotes biodiversity conservation and sustainable use and how it may have been affected by the Covid-19 crises?
- What impacts do you think the Covid-19 crises has had on the appreciation of policy makers and the public at large of the importance of halting the erosion of biodiversity and natural capital?
- What solutions would you like to see included in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, solutions that also could help us to “Build Back Better” after the Covid crises, with “better” meaning solutions that could help build future societies in harmony with nature, biodiversity and the climate system. And how can we all work better together to achieve such a future?
LVMH reaffirms its historic commitment to environmental protection alongside UNESCO
Sharing values - Hélène Valade, Director of Environmental Development, LVMH
On the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, LVMH reaffirms its historic commitment to the protection of the environment alongside UNESCO