AFRICAN INDABA

14    Hunters can make a difference!

CIC Press Release

What’s biodiversity to you? CIC calls on hunters around the world to participate in International Year of Biodiversity

 The upcoming Year of Biodiversity 2010 is the unique chance to bring the hunters’ efforts for conservation into the public focus! Don’t miss out on this opportunity. The CIC calls hunters and hunting organisations around the world to actively participate in the global efforts to save the biodiversity we all so deeply depend on. Every hunter can act and serve as an ambassador for biodiversity conservation. During the Year of Biodiversity, the CIC will launch initiatives to showcase the key role of hunters in biodiversity conservation, culminating in the prize ceremony for the CIC Markhor Award for Outstanding Conservation Performance Through Sustainable Use at the Conference of the 193 countries that have joined the Biodiversity Convention CBD in Nagayo, Japan in October 2010.  

Unwise use of natural resources has caused more damage in the last fifty years than in the whole of human history. We cannot afford to continue on this destructive path.  Sustainable use, which includes hunting, is one of best ways to ensure the continued conservation of biological diversity. Nature provides and sustains the very existence of all of us, and unless we value the benefits we derive from using biological resources, we risk losing them in total – along with their intrinsic and cultural value. 

A key to achieving long-lasting change is raising awareness of the significance and feasibility of sustainable use on a global scale. With its Markhor Award, the CIC has created one such instrument. The award celebrates the efforts of personalities, institutions and conservation projects linking the conservation of biodiversity and human livelihoods through the application of the principles of sustainable use – including hunting. The CBD Executive Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf particularly welcomed that “the CIC Markhor Award helps achieving recognition of projects and communities who have brought into the centre of their activities the Addis Ababa Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Use of Biodiversity”. Mr Djoghlaf said “this is a unique award, in that it recognizes [...] the efforts of personalities, institutions and conservation projects who and which link the conservation of biodiversity and human livelihoods. 

The International Year of Biodiversity is an opportunity for hunters and other conservationists to encourage people to discover the biodiversity that surrounds us, to realize its value, our connection to it and the consequences of its loss. Hunters spent more time in nature than most other people – we therefore must act to save it. 

 Yet, we need to inform ourselves. The Internet is a great place to start, find out more at www.cbd.int  Do your part! Develop your knowledge about biodiversity issues. Interest your family and friends and other hunters; Initiate a biodiversity project at your local hunting community. Yes, YOU can do it... if we each do our part without waiting for others to do something first. YOU start, others will follow.