Dublin Zoo joins Global Coalition “United for Biodiversity”

Dublin Zoo is proud to be the first Irish organisation to officially join the European Commission’s Global Coalition, ‘#UnitedforBiodiversity’. The Coalition, launched on World Wildlife Day 2020 by EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, calls on all zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens, national parks, research centres, science and natural history museums to boost public awareness about the nature crisis. Dublin Zoo joins dozens of institutions worldwide, such as the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, the botanic garden of Porto or the Allwetterzoo in Münster. The Coalition is also supported by 23 organisations, including the World, European and British & Irish associations of zoos and aquariums and also Leave No Trace Ireland. Together we join forces to speak up for nature ahead of the crucial CoP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China later this year. During this summit, the 196 Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity are expected to adopt a new global framework to protect and restore nature.

Dr Christoph Schwitzer, Director of Dublin Zoo said; “Dublin Zoo is proud to be helping to lead the way in Ireland, by becoming one of the first institutions in the country to join this hugely important coalition. We are currently in a biodiversity crisis. More than one million species are threatened with extinction. Losing these species undermines the ecosystems we depend on to live, jeopardizing our food, our health, our economy and our own future. “We are calling on our fellow Irish organisations to join “#UnitedforBiodiversity,” to raise awareness in Ireland and further afield about the urgent need to protect the disparate variety of life on earth, for ourselves and subsequent generations.”

Biodiversity - or biological diversity - is the term given to the variety of species on Earth. It forms the web of life of which we are an integral part. This variety of life forms different ecosystems on land and in water where living creatures including humans, form a community, interacting with one another and with the air, water, and soil around them. Dublin Zoo’s mission is to protect biodiversity for generations to come. We partner with conservation projects worldwide and in Ireland, to preserve biodiversity and protect critically endangered species, including the Sulawesi crested macaque, Bornean orangutan and Eastern bongo. Dublin Zoo also runs an extensive array of educational programmes raising awareness of biodiversity. Our supporters have been an integral part of enabling us to carry out this mission. However, we need to do more – we need to continue raising awareness of this extinction crisis. We need to continue supporting wildlife conservation organisations. And, we need to be responsible global citizens and do what we can to reduce our negative impacts on the planet. By signing the Coalition pledge, we’re calling on global leaders to be ambitious in their aims at the CoP15 meeting later this year, and we’re inviting all other Irish organisations to join us in this fight for our future, by supporting “#UnitedforBiodiversity”. Find more information and how to join the Coalition here.

Let’s come together and make 2021 the year we turned the tide on the biodiversity crisis.

• Coalition, launched by the European Commission, calls for stronger mobilisation in raising awareness about the need to protect biodiversity
• Dublin Zoo joins a host of other zoological, botanical, conservation, education, and science organisations in endorsing the aims of the coalition
• Coalition established ahead of the crucial CoP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversityto be held in 2021 in China