Biodiversity Village Award, 2011
Fall 2010 - B
Over the past 3 years, Ibsar has secured partnerships with over 20 municipalities that have been cooperative and extremely proactive in fulfilling the basic objectives of rehabilitating and greening their public spaces with native trees we produced at AREC. But the buck doesn’t stop there. The Center is announcing an incentivesbased strategy to promote biodiversity conservation and community involvement through a unique project that will raise the visibility of active partners. Ibsar has initiated the Biodiversity Village Award (BVA), sponsored by the Coca-Cola Foundation. This is a competition designed to recognize the achievements of village communities, including municipalities, members of local NGOs, teachers and school administrators, individuals from the private sector, and other professionals - who are contributing to a sustainable natural environment in their community. Ibsar has assembled a BVA committee of AUB faculty members from different disciplines that will assess the portfolios of the villages. We will work with participating villages throughout the year to help them construct their environmental portfolio. The winning village will be announced in October, 2011, and will host the first ‘Planting a Heritage’ village festival (details will be provided in the next newsletter!). Good luck participating villages!
‘Seeds of Hope, Trees for Tomorrow’ 2007-2010 campaign summary & review Through our ‘Seeds of Hope, Trees for Tomorrow’ campaign we have partnered with many municipalities throughout Lebanon (see map). This year we are embracing and entering into two new phases in the Power of Planting: ‘Cradles of the Forest’ which will assume the responsibility of disseminating know-how on the production of native seedlings through the implementation of village nurseries. ‘Planting a Heritage’ is the 3rd component of the Program aimed at not only raising awareness about biodiversity or planting native trees, but celebrating the cultural and natural heritage of rural communities through the organizing of Ibsar’s ‘Planting a Heritage’ village festivals every November. Power of Planting has made some remarkable achievements and progress in such a short period of time, and we hope that it becomes a catalyst to many more community conservation projects in the future. AUB-Ibsar owes much of its accomplishments to the donors and partners for making this happen.
From International Year of Biodiversity to International Year of Forests – Ibsar is still in the limelight! The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD, www.cbd.int) announced last month its yearly theme and, lucky for us, it is on forests! AUB-Ibsar will continue to show its support and promotion of protecting forests (the majority of terrestrial species of plants and animals live in forests) and raising awareness on this topic through adopting the logo on virtually all of its media, including the newly renovated website which be launching early in 2011. In Lebanon, there is a dire need to protect the remaining forests and woodlands, currently less than15% of land cover. Moreover, it is just as important to generate awareness about forest biodiversity while reforestation efforts are being initiated throughout the nation.
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