Biodiversity Conservation: our Past, Present and Future

This workshop aims to provide the opportunity to dive into the basic frameworks around biodiversity and conservation by looking into the past, present and future of this field through a European lens.

What you can expect

Biodiversity ensures nature’s resilience to crises, and serves as the foundation to a sustainable earth that is able to provide us the resource for human activity and production. However, biodiversity loss has become one of the biggest challenges our environment faces. The workshop on biodiversity will bring participants back to the past efforts, observe the ongoing discussions, and envision future directions to conserve biodiversity, promote its sustainable use and the fair access and benefit-sharing arising from its genetic resources.

We will share insights and provide expert information on the essentials of biodiversity, why this topic matters and how it is continuing to impact the present and future generations to come. The workshop is aiming at taking the audience on a biological journey by explaining where the idea originated from and where they had hoped for the path to lead towards, with a specific focus on the role the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is designed to play. The workshop will also focus on how this subject is impacting European realities by contextualising it to realities on the ground. Young people across Europe are fundamental in advocating for the preservation and regeneration of the biodiversity that our and future generations depend on. To do that, it is important to know where we fit into this debate and discover together on how we best can influence them.

The value of youth engagement in this effort is tremendous. As youth, we are the ones who have the greatest potential to turn our vision into effective actions, and we are the main beneficiary of the future positive outcome generated. There are many creative actions youth are capable of implementing in their communities with the help of art, literature, sport, business, and technology. In addition, we strive to make available resources accessible to youth who are interested in joining the movement.

Moreover, as the rising generation, it is also essential to bring in new perspectives to look at biodiversity challenges. The unprecedented urbanisation level inspires us to design new habitats for endangered species in the cities, indigenous peoples provide valuable wisdoms that traditional science is not able to capture, and digital tools may serve as a great contributor on visualisation of negative consequences that we were isolated from.

Aims and Objectives

The session hopes to connect youth around the topic of biodiversity and develop their understanding on engagement on biodiversity in the European context from local to international levels.

After the session, participants are expected to:

Form a deeper understanding on their connection with nature and biodiversity
Reflect and contextualise their obliged responsibilities on protecting nature and address biodiversity loss
Develop different perspectives to analyse biodiversity in urban v. rural, east v. west, ocean v. land context
Recognise particularly the indigenous communities that are underestimated in the biodiversity dialogue
Raise awareness and empower members to take active initiatives around biodiversity that fits their local context
Explain the biodiversity framework and provide an opportunity to learn more about international negotiations on biodiversity.