CABI Blog

Forests and forest biodiversity is the theme for this year's International Day of Biodiversity (IDB), on Sunday 22^nd May 2011; because 2011 is also the International Year of Forests. This is also the year the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) launched the official Decade on Biological Diversity website.

The CBD Secretariat is encouraging all parties to the Convention and all organizations that deal in some way with the issue to organize activities and events to celebrate the IBD and to take advantage of it to showcase their work on Biodiversity and Forests, to raise public awareness and increase practical action.

Biodiversity is often linked with forests biodiversity. I did a search in Cabdirect using the terms “forests and biodiversity”, which returned 59 records, including an article by Harvey et. al., in Conservation Letters vol 3(1), entitled ‘Opportunities for achieving biodiversity conservation through REDD’. The paper looked into the implications of REDD design and implementation options on biodiversity conservation and ways to link REDD with biodiversity conservation. A paper by Nitschke and Innes, in CAB Reviews examined the interactions between fire, climate change and forest biodiversity, which is quite topical considering the recent wave of forest fires around the world. A Cabdirect search using the term ‘forests’ returned over 800,000 records.

Link to IDB videos, including the launch message from Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, UN Goodwill Ambassador Edward Norton, "Celebrating Forests",  “Forests”,  and “Forests in our everyday lives”.

Link to IDB events. These include a clean up day in Armenia; a Festival of Biodiversity in Australia; Earth Alive events in Canada; the Fête de la biodiversité in Montpellier, France; The greenwave and the International Summit for Ever Green Forest in Japan; and the Guernsey's guide to sustainable living in the UK.

Link to the official Decade on Biological Diversity website.

Link to previous ‘handpicked blogs on international year of biodiversity’:

Highlighting International Day of Biodiversity – 22 May 2010

Biodiversity, Development and Poverty Alleviation

References

Harvey, C. A.; Dickson, B.; Kormos, C. (2010) Opportunities for achieving biodiversity conservation through REDD. Conservation Letters 2010 Vol. 3 No. 1 pp. 53-61. 20103091170

Craig R. Nitschke* and John L. Innes (2006) Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources. CAB Reviews, No. 060. doi: 10.1079/PAVSNNR20061060