IUCN spreads biodiversity knowledge through an innovative web site

Gland, Switzerland, December 15, 2000 (IUCN) - IUCN - The World Conservation Union has today launched an innovative public web site designed to raise widespread awareness of the urgency of the global species extinction. Entitled "Biodiversity is life" (http://iucn.org/bil), and sponsored by Volkswagen France, the web site is devised to allow a wide audience to access vital information on the conservation of biodiversity.

For ease of reading, the web site is set up in five sections: 'The Foundation of life', 'In our lives', 'Effects of Human activities', 'How to act', 'IUCN and Biodiversity', each containing sub chapters and hyperlinks. The Biodiversity web site includes a new creative graphic designed by the communications agency "DDB". This graphic portrays the planet in the shape of an egg, illustrating the fragility of life.

"Throughout the world, we have witnessed the loss of biological diversity at an unprecedented and ever accelerating rate. The current rate of species' extinction is believed to exceed the one the earth experienced before the onset of the human era -- during the extinction episode of 70 million years ago when dinosaurs disappeared", says Maritta Koch-Weser, IUCN's Director General.

IUCN's partnership with Volkswagen France, which funded the project, dates back to the Union's 50th anniversary in November 1998, celebrated in its birthplace, Fontainebleau. Says Michel Le Paire, President of Volkswagen France: "IUCN's partnership with Volkswagen reflects the Union's willingness to link two remote cultures on the basis of a privileged relationship with an economic actor which showed a substantial commitment to the protection of environment."

The launch of the "Biodiversity is life" web site is perceived as a valuable contribution to the Union's mission "to influence and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable." This mission is successfully achieved in France by the French National Committee for IUCN that gathers in a unique partnership the French government, 5 public agencies and 33 non governmental organisations as well as a network of nearly 200 scientific experts. Its programmes are focused on threatened species, protected areas and ecosystems management (forests, mountains, coastal zones and wetlands) or major biodiversity regions (Mediterranean, Guyana Shield).