The International Biodiversity Day takes place on May 22 and its theme in 2010 is “Biodiversity and Development”. The overall aim is to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.

To celebrate the International Biodiversity Day (IBD), XTBG offered speical guided tours to the general public.

May 22 is the perfect time for visiting the wonderful tropical paradise at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG). In addition to the beautiful landscapes and distinct plants, visitors will be lucky enough to have the director, professors and associate professors as volunteers to show them around the garden.

Last Saturday, a group of tourists from Changchun, Jilin, Northern China, luckily had Prof. Dr. Chen Jin, director of XTBG, as their tour guide, which gave them a deep impression. They said that they would introduce the idea of biodiversity conservation to their family and friends.

Prof. Dr Chen Jin as a tour guide

Many staff volunteers also got involved in the event.

Foreign experts like Prof. Chuck Cannon and Dr. Rhett Harrison volunteered as tour guides, too. They asked some middle school students to collect leaves and seeds of plants and taught them to classify and posed pictures.

Link:

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 to provide a legal framework for biodiversity conservation.
Though countries around the world have made relentless efforts to preserve biodiversity, scientists estimate dozens of species disappear from the Earth every single day.
China became a contracting party of the Convention in 1993.

Since 2001, the International Day for Biological Diversity is celebrated each year on the anniversary of this date.

The aim of each Biodiversity Day is to raise public and political awareness at the national and international levels, of the significance of ecosystems and biodiversity for human well-being.