May 2012 Newsletter

From the Editor’s Desk

Dear all,
Welcome to the May issue of Go4BioDiv Newsletter!

May was a busy and eventful month. Go4Biodiv achieved a major milestone by completing the selection process that has given us 35 vibrant and dedicated young adults from important coastal and marine sites of the World- our Go4BioDiv Messengers 2012”. We take great pride in welcoming and presenting the selected messengers together in current and the June issue of the Newsletter. In this issue, we present messengers from Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Costa Rica, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mauritania, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, The Netherlands, and USA. These participants will immediately begin their activities with the Go4BioDiv Virtual camp via a virtual discussion forum using social media. These Messengers will be supported in their contributions to the forum activities via an E-Coaching on biodiversity. We provide a brief overview of different activities on virtual platform in this issue.

The host country website for CBD COP 11 was launched in this month. This website will provide easy access to information on CBD COP related events and activities. We gratefully acknowledge the MoEF for hosting Go4BioDiv website link on the COP website.

This is also a time for celebration for the conservation community. Last month, we celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity with great enthusiasm. Today is the World Environment Day, which is being celebrated across the globe in many forms and ways. A similar enthusiasm is also expected for the World Ocean day on June 8th. Please share information on your celebrations with us, and we would be happy to share that in our next newsletter.

At the end, we would like to reiterate that we look forward to your contributions in the form of stories, news, photos, videos and messages. We also seek your valuable feedback and suggestions on the content and outreach of the Go4Biodiv newsletter.

Happy Reading!

WHAT’S INSIDE

News from the International Youth Forum Go4BioDiv 2012

‘Conserving coastal and marine biodiversity for sustaining life and livelihoods’
6 – 19 October 2012 in the Sundarbans/ Hyderabad, India in parallel with the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP 11), October 2012 in Hyderabad, India……. more

Phases and elements of Go4BioDiv 2012 …….. more

A Footprint …….. more

Go4BioDiv Introduces E-Coaching / invites participation on Facebook…….. more

News from OUR World Heritage Sites

Opportunities to protect Biodiversity Hotspots during global financial crisis
In May 2011, California State Parks announced a plan to close up to 70 of its 279 parks due to budget cuts. The closures were deemed necessary to achieve an $11 million reduction in the next fiscal year 2011-12. State Parks had three primary goals for developing the closure methodology…….. more

Research Update from Kaziranga National Park – A World Heritage Site
Kaziranga National Park (KNP)-A world heritage site is situated in the floodplain of the Brahmaputra River in Assam. Ecology of this Park is largely governed by hydrological regime of the Brahmaputra River. KNP’s vegetation is maintained not only by…….. more

Now you know!

Major conventions relevant to coastal marine biodiversity and livelihoods (Part – I)
Major International conventions that focus on biodiversity issues are CBD, CMS, CITES, ITPGR, Ramsar, and WHC. CBD or the Convention on Biological Diversity …….. more

Corner Piece

Youth and Marine Biodiversity Conservation
The fact so poignantly put forward by Bittu that really echoes the need of an hour. Our ever expanding knowledge on conservation science also brought in new challenges. …….. more

Youth Power

Mikelita strives to conserve Lake Turkana with Go4biodiv support
Mikelita Lenapir represented her community El Molo from Lake Turkana at Go4BioDiv 2010 in Naogya, Japan. She spoke out about the threats…….. more

Student power is mightier than any other power in the world
Professor Kathiresan shares his experience on mangrove plantation in an estuarine area in India with the help of his young students. He remembers how his students …….. more

News & Events……more

Featured World marine heritage site of the month
The coastal area of Belize is an outstanding natural system consisting of the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons and estuaries. The system’s seven…….. more

About Go4BioDiv

Go4BioDiv is an International Youth Forum, aimed at providing a platform to the youth to voice their opinion on the issues related to Biodiversity during the global event of decision-making on biodiversity – the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP). Go4BioDiv was organized for the first time in parallel to CBD-COP 9 in Bonn-Germany in 2008 and for the second time during COP 10 in Nagoya-Japan in 2010. Both the events were a great success.

Go4BioDiv is conceptualized and implemented to make impact at three levels. First, on the lives of the participants (called ‘Messengers’) by providing them exposure to issues and experts in the field of biodiversity conservation and making them a part of the bigger conservation and youth networks. The second impact is the outreach and awareness generation by the Go4BioDiv Messengers both to the wider public at COP and in their home countries/sites. The third impact during COP is realized by providing a fresh youth perspective on the issues, particularly in cross-cutting CBD Programmes of Work.

The Youth Forum has different phases to it, covering the periods pre-, during and post-CBD-COP. The pre-COP phase is a virtual phase, where communication and learning is facilitated via virtual platforms like facebook Pgae, Discussion forum on Facebook, mailing lists, and a monthly newsletter; During CBD-COP, the 35 selected Messengers come together in the host country, for two weeks parallel to CBD-COP11, where they work on a group affiliation, organize and participate in events during the High-Level Segment of the COP, including a youth declaration; Post-COP, different follow-up activities accompany the continued virtual interactions to facilitate the participants to act as messengers in their home countries/states, including a publication.

Website: Further details on Go4BioDiv, previous events, and the application process and material can be found at the Go4BioDiv website: www.go4biodiv.org.

Facebook Page: Subscribe to the Facebook Page of Go4BioDiv http://www.facebook.com/Go4BioDiv] to receive daily updates on the coastal marine conservation and youth initiatives.

Discussion Forum: Participate in the discussions on coastal marine conservation and youth involvement in conservation on http://www.facebook.com/groups/youth4coastalmarine/

Imprint

Published by:

Go 4 BioDiV Communications Task Force

Editorial Team:

Editor-in-Chief: Dr V B Mathur

Executive Editor: Dr Neeraj Khera

Editors: Ms. Shazia Quasin, Ms Tushita Mukherjee

Design and Layout: Ms Gurjit Kaur

All the contributions, feedback, suggestions and views on the newsletter or issues discussed in the newsletter should be directed to Dr Neeraj Khera, Executive Editor at go4biodivindia(at)gmail.com or neeraj.khera(at)giz.de.

In case, you would like to send your contributions or communication in the form of a hard-copy, please send it to:

Ms Shazia Quasin, Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box #18, Chandrabani, Dehradun – 248001, Uttarakhand, India

Photo credit: Cover page – Go4BioDiv

Disclaimer:

The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Wildlife Institute of India, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN),United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and WWF do not guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or validity of contributions in this newsletter.

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter by sending an email to go4biodivindia(at)gmail.com or neeraj.khera(at)giz.de.