29 January 2010. Based at the Natural History Museum in London, IYB-UK is the partnership of organisations, groups and charities celebrating the IYB in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom has responded extremely strongly to the call to support the IYB and the partnership is strong, with 300 partners ranging from charities to farmers, local councils to wildlife rangers, schools and colleges to zoos and museums and botanic gardens.
The IYB-UK partnership was launched on 25 November at the NHM with speeches by Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the CBD and Huw Irranca Davies, UK Member of Parliament. In his speech Mr Irranca Davies said that the IYB “gives us a real opportunity to leave a legacy of a greater public understanding of the intrinsic importance of our natural world.” And he stated that “Everyone…should be confident about their ability to create a better world. Because time and again, we have shown that by working together we can achieve more than we could ever have hoped for.” This statement very much reflects the spirit in which IYB-UK has grown up.
The exciting and broad programme in the UK from January-December includes talks, exhibitions, public debates, art work, citizen science experiments and exhibitions encompassing both science and the arts.
UK-wide events include the chance to take part in surveys of farmland birds, butterflies, harvest mice, hedgehogs and water.
There will be bat walks, bird watching, honey and apple sampling and orchard visits at blossom and harvest time. Summer highlights include pond dipping, insect trawling, bird box building and rambling. Hives will be introduced into the grounds of city churches and city squares will be transformed into gardens. Towns and cities will be going head-to-head, competing to map their local biodiversity. Hundreds of thousands of new plants and trees will be planted. New songs and music about bees will be commissioned and heard. A symbolic conference table and chairs, made from driftwood, will be built and shipped to Nagoya as a powerful call to action to the world’s leaders as they hold the future of life on Earth in their hands.
Bookmark the IYB-UK website, follow iybuk on Twitter, or on Facebook as International Year of Biodiversity UK.
Photo © OPAL