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UNESCO Forum on Biodiversity
Event Date: 
Wed, 2021/03/24
Venue: 
Paris, France (Online)

Our Planet, Our Future: 50 Years of MAB
"On the way to Kunming"

 

Climate change and the erosion of biodiversity are interdependent challenges. They both contribute to the devastation of lives, ecosystems, habitats and our natural and cultural heritage. Their multifaceted impact takes the form of forest fires, destruction of mangroves, and increased ocean temperatures leading to coral bleaching. These two phenomena are also responsible for droughts, food shortages and forced migration, causing serious health consequences as with the COVID-19 crisis, and exacerbating poverty and inequalities, which are obstacles to peace worldwide.

 

UNESCO, as a laboratory of ideas and a guardian organization of knowledge and know-how respectful of biodiversity, has an important role to play in helping to shape and fuel a dialogue on environmental challenges and their implications, both ethical and for peace in the world. This is the goal of its Biodiversity Forum to be held online on Wednesday March 24, 2021 from 1:00 p.m. The year 2021 is also a crucial year for Biodiversity, during which new objectives and new commitments will be made for the coming decade. UNESCO and all its partners will be there.

 

The Biodiversity Forum will welcome prestigious guests from all over the world and various actors committed to the benefit of biodiversity:

 

  • Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, who will launch the celebration of the 50th anniversary of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere programme: Living together on Earth differently
  • Mr Antoine Arnault, Director of LVMH
  • Dr Jane Goodall,  DBE. Founder - the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace; UNESCO-MAB 50th Anniversary Patron
  • Pope Francis, through a message read by Mrg Francesco Follo, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to UNESCO
  • Mr Peter Thomson, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Oceans
  • Mr Jesse H. Ausubel, Director of the Human Environment Program at Rockefeller University
  • Mr Enric Sala, Explorer and Initiator of the Pristine Seas Project, National Geographic
  • Mr Basile Van Havre, Co-Chair of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
  • Mr Nicolas Hulot, former Minister of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, France
  • Ms Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Representative of the Indigenous Peoples of Lake Chad, SDG Advocate of the United Nations Secretary-General

 

The event will be streamed live in English and French.

 

Contact: Meriem Bouamrane

 

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