Originally posted on the FreshwaterBlog on 21 & 22 May 2013
With World Biodiversity Day just one sleep away, Will Darwall, Head of the IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Unit, sat down with Paul Jepson from the University of Oxford to discuss some of the big challenges facing freshwater biodiversity.
The theme of the International Day of Biodiversity 2013 is ‘Water & Biodiversity’, highlighting the crucial importance of both. However, freshwater biodiversity is currently facing some big challenges. 50% of the world’s wetlands have been lost last century, freshwater species most at risk from extinction, and habitat destruction is making the problem worse, yet the problem often literally remains out of sight and out of mind.
Listen to Will Darwall explore some of the key issues and explain why it is important to be concerned about freshwater biodiversity.
Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of the interview, where Will Darwall discusses a potential solution to address freshwater biodiversity’s lack of visibility.
Part 2 Leasing Conservationist Calls for Freshwater Advocacy Group
Will Darwall, Head of IUCN’s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit, has used the International Day for Biodiversity to call for the formation of a single group of freshwater scientists and conservationists to give voice to the myriad of life under and on the surfaces of our lakes, rivers and wetlands.
Speaking with Paul Jepson from the University of Oxford, Will highlighted the need to work together and form a single advocacy group, pointing out that the community of freshwater scientists is quite small and fragmented worldwide relative to other groups working on more charismatic species. Can we bring together all these disparate groups working on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems and form a much stronger, single ‘expert network’?
