Side Event
Urban conservation efforts to engage city dwellers and to reduce the loss of important biodiversity
Organizer
Chicago Region Biodiversity Council
Date and Time
29 March 2006 13:15 - 15:0
Two similar experiences—one in Chicago, U.S., and one in Curitiba, Brazil—engage city-dwellers in the conservation and restoration of natural remnants of high biological value that survive in large urban centers. In this side-event we will have a round-table presentation of the work of Chicago Wilderness (an alliance of 200 diverse organizations focused on studying and restoring the natural resources of the greater Chicago region) and of the Condomínio da Biodiversidade (a coalition working in Curitiba and neighboring areas). Both initiatives work with private citizens; corporations; local, state, and federal agencies; academic institutions, and conservation organizations. Both in Chicago Wilderness and in the Condomínio da Biodiversidade the regions are immense, the human populations enormous, and the pressures on the environment daunting. And both efforts focus on a major opportunity: to restore to life a complex of natural communities that are among the world’s finest (tallgrass prairie/oak savanna complex and Atlantic forest), but are on the verge of disappearing.