26 January 2010, Brussels – Officially launching the International Year of Biodiversity, BirdLife International [1] presented “Biodiversity on the Brink”, a photo exhibition of Europe’s natural wonders. At a well attended event in the European Parliament, guests enjoyed 15 astonishing pictures of European landscapes, animals and human activities, learning more about the threats our nature is facing, but also about the opportunities to save it.

“2010 is really our chance to concretely act to save our nature, after failing to meet the biodiversity target. A new European Parliament has been elected and a new European Commission will soon be in place, so this is our opportunity for a fresh and ambitious new start to conserve and restore Europe’s biodiversity. This year the future of the planet is in our hands”, commented Angelo Caserta, Regional Director at BirdLife International’s European Division.  

BirdLife is an official partner of International Year of Biodiversity. With its sound base in science, and the BirdLife Partnership's global repository of information on bird populations, BirdLife International is uniquely placed to comment and report on the state of biodiversity for the CBD, whose meeting will take place in Nagoya, Japan, later this year.[2]

Action for birds has also been shown to benefit other biodiversity, while protecting and restoring the ecosystem services on which people and their livelihoods depend. Apart from its work on threatened bird species, the BirdLife Partnership's work ranges from the restoration of damaged small island ecosystems to the establishment and management of national and transboundary Protected Areas. Across the developing world, BirdLife is working with marginalised and impoverished communities, helping them to achieve security through land rights and representation, and sustainable livelihoods.

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Herlinde Herpoel, Head of European Communication & Marketing at BirdLife International - 

+32 (0)494 542 844, herlinde.herpoel@birdlife.org

Notes for the editor

[1] BirdLife International is a global Partnership of nature conservation organisations working in more than 100 countries and territories. BirdLife is the leading authority on the status of birds, their habitats and the problems affecting them, and is working on a wide range of environmental issues. 

For more information about the work of the BirdLife European Division: http://europe.birdlife.org  

[2] The 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10) and the 5th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol (COP-MOP 5) will be held in Nagoya, Aichi, from 11 to 29 October 2010. More information at http://www.cop10.jp/aichi-nagoya/english/cop/cop.html