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2010 International year of biodiversity

2010 is the International year of biodiversity. Your country needs you!

Biodiversity is life

Humans are part of nature’s rich diversity and have the power to protect or destroy it.

Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, is essential to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us all with health, wealth, food, fuel and the vital services our lives depend on.

Human activity is causing the diversity of life on Earth to be lost at a greatly accelerated rate. These losses are irreversible, impoverish us all and damage the life support systems we rely on everyday. But we can prevent them.

2010 is the International year of biodiversity. Let’s reflect on our achievements to safeguard biodiversity and focus on the urgency of our challenge for the future.

Now is the time to act.

What is the International year of biodiversity?

The United Nations General Assembly declared that 2010 will be the International Year of Biodiversity to help raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity all over the world.

A global target to significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010 was agreed by nearly 200 countries in 2002. The International Year of Biodiversity will align with the next conference of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010, which will assess international progress towards this target.

What we are doing in the UK

In the UK, campaign membership has grown to 340 partner organisations, of which the Environment Agency is one. Each partner, large and small, provides a unique perspective on how to mark the year.

We are encouraging people to get more involved with protecting wildlife and habitats around them.

  • Why biodiversity matters

    Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life. Biodiversity is you.

  • What are we doing?

    Our role in the 2010 International year of biodiversity and our calendar of themes.

  • What you can do

    Your involvement in the 2010 International year of biodiversity is vital to its success. We want people to enjoy and value wildlife as much as we do.