The Deputy Mayor of Brighton & Hove, Councillor Ann Norman, invited members of the Big Nature team to the Mayors parlor at Brighton Town Hall on Friday 17th December, to thank them for their hard and dedicated work to raise the profile of biodiversity through out the International Year of Biodiversity. Big Nature Co-ordinator, Dr Dan Danahar also thanked everybody for their tremendous effort but pointed out that now that the UN has designated that next year is the start of the International Decade of Biodiversity, things have just begun...
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Brighton & Hove’s “Big Nature” is the name given to a loose association of different organisations, including: Brighton & Hove City Council, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Sussex Branch of Butterfly Conservation and Dorothy Stringer Environmental Partnership, who have come together to deliver a series of biodiversity related events during 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB). The aim is to involve and inspire people with their local environment.
“Big Nature” is in some senses a synonym for biodiversity, which used in its broadest sense, includes the almost infinite variety found in life at the ecosystem, species and genetic levels. “Big Nature” is a congenial term designed to introduce members of the public, from the eight year old child to the octogenarian, to the diversity of life found in their local environment and so its use is the first step to raising their own bio-literacy skills. It also lends itself to the idea of inclusion, that we all are sharing the one biosphere, we are all stakeholders, with vested interests in maintaining a healthy environment and so we all have a role to play. Big Nature helps us to see our role with Biodiversity within the “big picture”.
Dr Dan Danahar 2009
Big Nature is a partner of the Natural History Museum's IYB-UK. This is an informal network of organisations that plan to promote understanding of biodiversity during the International Year of Biodiversity.
Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, is essential to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us with health, wealth, food, fuel and vital services our lives depend on. We have the power to protect or destroy nature's rich diversity. Currently our lifestyles are causing the diversity of life on Earth to be lost at an accelerating rate. These losses are irreversible, impoverish us all and damage the life support systems we rely on. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity - now is the time to act. Let's pause to reflect on our achievements to safeguard biodiversity and focus on the urgency of our challenge for the future.
Big Nature will be celebrating biodiversity events regularly throughout 2010.
A full time-table of these is being put together and you can watch their development, month by month, by clicking button below.
Watch the UN Secretary General Welcome Message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity HERE
Click here for the latest information sheet. (1.9MB pdf)
Photos: C. Sutton, D. Danahar
If you have any enquiries please contact us: info@bigbiodiversitycount.org.uk
