About Biodiversity Month and IBOY
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About Biodiversity Month and IBOY

What is Biodiversity Month?

May 2002 marks the first American Biodiversity Month, a national celebration of America’s rich diversity of life. Biodiversity Month is a time to celebrate biodiversity through educational activities and scientific exploration.

Anyone can take part! Scientists, educators and citizen groups are organizing events. Simply by registering your activity with Biodiversity Month you can contribute to a broader understanding of biodiversity issues while raising the profile of your local efforts.

Biodiversity Month is being coordinated nationally by the International Biodiversity Observation Year (IBOY). IBOY is producing resources to help you with your event including:

  • a webpage where you can post a description of your event to help highlight it and network it with other efforts
  • inclusion of your events on a national calendar of planned activities
  • fact sheets, action guides, media guides, posters
  • opportunities for greater media visibility
  • opportunities to include your data with that of other participating groups to produce a nationwide snapshot of biodiversity

Why a Biodiversity Month?

The US Biodiversity Month is an opportunity for people in the US to participate in a global initiative to raise awareness of biodiversity. As part of the International Biodiversity Observation Year (IBOY), which is taking place during 2001 and 2002, Biodiversity Month provides an opportunity to highlight all the biodiversity-related activities that occur in just one month across the country. We have chosen the month of May to also join with the United Nations as they celebrate International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22.

Biodiversity Month will not just celebrate biodiversity but will:

  • connect activities in the US with other IBOY activities around the world
  • network and build coalitions between US biodiversity organizations
  • launch coordinated efforts to develop new nationwide information
  • raise broad science-based awareness of biodiversity

How can I get involved in Biodiversity Month 2002?

You can take part in Biodiversity Month in two ways:

1) Join us as a founding participant in Biodiversity Month. Organize an activity to explore biodiversity in May 2002 and register with Biodiversity Month to link your effort to those of others.

We offer some suggestions and activity guides for different activities below. Each Activity guide contains information to help organize an activity, forms for registering with Biodiversity Month and for reporting your findings in May, and resources to help your event.

BioBlitz (for museums, botanic gardens, zoos, parks, etc.)
Backyard BioBlitz Count and Contest (for schools, youth groups, etc.)
Biodiversity Fairs and Festivals (for everyone)

2) Take part in an event near you.

Join an Event

About the International Biodiversity Observation Year (IBOY) 2001-2002

IBOY is an initiative of DIVERSITAS, the international program on biodiversity science. It aims to generally advance knowledge of biodiversity and amplify the compelling science-based case for concern and action about its loss. IBOY’s specific goals are to:

  • network and integrate biodiversity research to advance a holistic understanding of biodiversity and its connections to society
  • increase communication of science-based information on biodiversity, and its importance, to a broad audience

As part of IBOY over one hundred individual biodiversity research and education projects are taking place across more than 148 countries. The projects are as diverse as biodiversity itself, ranging from surveys of life from forest canopies to ocean depths, studies of the interactions between biodiversity, ecosystems and human well-being, and programs that apply the latest science for biodiversity conservation. In 2001 and 2002 each IBOY project is delivering important new information for one or more of these important questions:

  • What biodiversity do we have and where is it?
  • What goods and services does biodiversity provide?
  • How is biodiversity changing?
  • How can we conserve biodiversity?

Additionally, countries around the world are celebrating IBOY with national biodiversity events. For example, in Australia the Australian Science Teachers Association, in association with the Australian Community Biodiversity Network made ‘Exploring Biodiversity’ the theme of National Science Week in May 2001.

More information on the IBOY can be found at http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/IBOY

 

  

 

 

 
 

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Last updated June 27, 2002 15:54