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Virtual World Biodiversity Forum 2021

2021 is the “Year of Im­pact” - COP26 of UN­FC­CC, COP15 of CBD and COP15 of UNC­CD are con­ven­ing; par­ties are ex­pect­ed to com­mit to a new glob­al bio­di­ver­si­ty frame­work and in­crease their am­bi­tion to com­bat cli­mate change. In­vig­o­ra­tion of syn­er­gies be­tween con­ven­tions will hope­ful­ly set us on a path to greater sus­tain­abil­i­ty and to achiev­ing the SDGs in 2030. Un­der­ly­ing these glob­al as­pi­ra­tions are re­gion­al, na­tion­al and lo­cal ac­tions that are prac­ti­cal and so­lu­tions-ori­ent­ed.


In the World Bio­di­ver­si­ty Fo­rum Vir­tu­al Events, we will bring to­geth­er bio­di­ver­si­ty sci­en­tists, sci­en­tists from dis­ci­plines rel­e­vant to the theme of the vir­tu­al event with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from key sec­tors (agri­cul­ture, fi­nance, health), as well as oth­er so­ci­etal ac­tors, e.g youth, to in­tro­duce case stud­ies, tell us about suc­cess sto­ries and high­light­ing syn­er­gies. Events are in­tend­ed as calls to ac­tion, of­fer­ing in­spi­ra­tion and pos­i­tive ex­am­ples for so­lu­tions to cre­ate an im­pact ac­tion agen­da for bio­di­ver­si­ty.


The se­ries of events will kick off with a launch event on 7 Jan­u­ary 2021, and con­tin­ue with six week­ly events in May / June 2021. The event in Jan­u­ary builds the foun­da­tion (the why and the what), while events in May / June pick up spe­cif­ic themes and high­light op­tions for ac­tions and so­lu­tions (the how), and chal­lenge the au­di­ence to fol­low suit and take ac­tion.

At this stage, events will be held in eng­lish on­ly.

Quick Links
– Biodiversity for a New Decade
– Lipstick on a Fig Tree
Quick Links
– Biodiversity for a New Decade
– Lipstick on a Fig Tree

Biodiversity for a New Decade

Loss of bio­di­ver­si­ty, chang­ing cli­mate, in­crease in ex­treme events threat­en to dam­age hu­man health, economies and so­ci­eties – it is high time to put the world on track to achieve the 2050 Vi­sion for Bio­di­ver­si­ty “Liv­ing in Har­mo­ny with Na­ture”.


Set­ting the scene for the events to fol­low, the event will con­vene lead­ers in bio­di­ver­si­ty to to dis­cuss the ques­tions Why do we need to take ac­tion and what do we want to achieve?

Fo­cussing on tran­si­tion points and the trans­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary to achieve this goal, the event aims to shape nar­ra­tives and to high­light ac­tion­able out­comes.


Speak­ers

Pan­elists


Date and Time: Thurs­day, 7th Jan­u­ary 2021, 18:00 CET

Reg­is­ter here to join the live event.

A record­ing will be made avail­able for lat­er view­ing.

Lipstick on a Fig Tree

Why Plant­i­ng Trees Avoids the Re­al Prob­lems (and May Make Things Worse)


Tree plant­i­ng dom­i­nates po­lit­i­cal and pop­u­lar agen­das, and is of­ten por­trayed as an easy an­swer to the cli­mate cri­sis and ef­fec­tive mit­i­ga­tion for cor­po­rate car­bon emis­sions. How­ev­er, it is not a sim­ple so­lu­tion: Plant­i­ng the wrong trees in the wrong place can cause con­sid­er­ably more dam­age than ben­e­fits, fail­ing peo­ple and na­ture. Giv­en that the botan­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty is cur­rent­ly as­sess­ing the con­ser­va­tion sta­tus of every tree species on Earth (https://glob­al­tree­assess­ment.org/) and we grow over 18,000 tree species in botan­ic gar­dens and ar­bore­ta, Botan­i­cal Gar­dens Con­ser­va­tion In­ter­na­tion­al (BC­GI) and Uni­ver­si­ty of British Co­lum­bia Botan­i­cal Gar­den (UBCBG) have an im­por­tant role to play in help­ing to en­sure that the right tree is plant­ed in the right place and that di­verse na­tive species are part of tree plant­i­ng port­fo­lios. Sure­ly it is com­mon sense to in­cor­po­rate bio­di­ver­si­ty, botan­i­cal da­ta and botan­i­cal ex­per­tise in­to both the plan­ning and prac­tice of tree plant­i­ng? This may not be the case.


First­ly, un­like car­bon or tim­ber, bio­di­ver­si­ty is not a com­mod­i­ty. As long as this re­mains the case, mar­ket-based so­lu­tions to the loss of bio­di­ver­si­ty are un­ten­able. Sec­ond­ly, few (if any) gov­ern­ments re­gard bio­di­ver­si­ty as enough of a pub­lic good to com­modi­tize it or fund it di­rect­ly at the lev­els re­quired. Third­ly, sci­ence it­self has a cred­i­bil­i­ty prob­lem. Large parts of so­ci­ety com­plete­ly mis­un­der­stand sci­ence and see it as a com­pet­ing be­lief sys­tem or dog­ma (cli­mate change is a case in point) rather than a process of test­ing and con­sen­sus.


So what needs to change? Just about every­thing. Gov­ern­ments need to rec­og­nize bio­di­ver­si­ty for the pub­lic good that it is and pull every lever at their dis­pos­al to ei­ther com­modi­tize it or di­rect­ly pay for it. So­ci­ety needs to rec­og­nize the im­por­tance of sci­ence in in­form­ing the de­ci­sions we ur­gent­ly need to make to en­sure life on Earth is sus­tain­able. Sci­ence needs to val­ue and re­ward the prac­ti­cal as well as the in­tel­lec­tu­al. The botan­ic gar­den com­mu­ni­ty needs to put the prac­ti­cal con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty first – in our seed banks, in our liv­ing col­lec­tions and, most im­por­tant­ly, out there in the land­scape.


Join Dean Meigan Aron­son of the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Co­lum­bia Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence, Patrick Lewis of the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Co­lum­bia Botan­i­cal Gar­den and Paul Smith of Botan­ic Gar­dens Con­ser­va­tion In­ter­na­tion­al in a vir­tu­al event ex­plor­ing a botanist’s rules of en­gage­ment in a rapid­ly chang­ing world.


Reg­is­ter here to join the live event.