1. Introduction

The www.iyb-uk.net net announcement site was launched today 22 May 2009, International Day for Biodiversity.

Plans are confirmed for a small secretariat to support a wide cross-sector partnership of organisations aiming to engage in the International Year of Biodiversity 2010. The secretariat for the informal partner network will be located at the Natural History Museum in London, supported by the government department responsible for biodiversity – the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and by the Museum’s sponsoring department the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS).

The www.iyb-uk.net partnership will be based upon the successful partnership for Darwin200 ( www.darwin200.org ) , building on its experience and working with diverse, multi-sector partner organisations from around the UK. The IYB-UK partnership will be officially launched publicly in the autumn of 2009 in advance of the IYB.

2. International Year of Biodiversity 2010 Look around you and celebrate the biodiversity around you. The furniture in your home, the advertisements on the streets, the food you’ll eat this evening... Biodiversity is all around us. The ecosystems of our world and the millions of species they comprise are the very foundations of human well-being. Biodiversity enriches our lives in so many ways, that we often forget it’s there. It has shaped our culture, our traditions and societies. It is the basis of economy and trade; it provides services essential to human well-being such as climate control, pollination, flood protection, and so many others. If the current loss of biodiversity continues, we will not only be poorer, in every sense of the word, but our very existence will be threatened.

The UNESCO designated IYB year is aligned to COP10 – a major meeting for the parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) which was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 2002. This meeting in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010 will mark a major point in assessing how well the world is keeping to the targets agreed in Rio. It will examine what lessons have been learned and how ‘success stories’ will be developed and taken forward in the years ahead.

The UK informal partnership will share the branding and endorsement for the year being developed by the two international bodies spearheading the IYB; the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) based in Montreal Canada, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (ICUN) based in Brussels, Belgium.

The UK secretariat is now active and will be sharing the identity information with partners as soon as it is available in the early summer of 2009. We will work with diverse partners and organisations around the UK and internationally as plans are developed for programme activity for the year ahead.

3. Aims of the IYB-UK partnership network Through the activities of the network we aim for everyone in the UK to take a fresh look aground us. To realise the furniture in our homes, the food we eat... Biodiversity is all around us. The ecosystems and the millions of species are the very foundations of human well-being. Biodiversity enriches our lives in so many ways, that we often forget it’s there. It has shaped our culture, our traditions and societies. It is the basis of economy and trade, it provides services essential to human well-being such as climate control, pollination, flood protection, and so many others. If the current loss of biodiversity continues, we will not only be poorer, in every sense of the word, but our very existence will be threatened.

Key goals for the informal network are to encourage a diverse range of activities through the partner’s programmes that will:

Increase public awareness Promote innovative solutions Encourage actions to support biodiversity action Raise awareness of the accomplishments to save biodiversity Initiate dialogue on steps for the post-2010 period promoting understanding of biodiversity, it significance and issues around it

There are three main messages:

Biodiversity is important for human well-being

The current rate of biodiversity loss is severe, by some accounts up to 100 times the natural rate of extinction

We need to work together to halt this loss. Many “success stories” point the way to the future