Art and Biodiversity Partnership and Biodiversity Loss

"The Art and Biodiversity Partnership brings together artists, scientists, conservation experts, students and the public to raise awareness of the links between Art and Biodiversity. We want to encourage action through the arts and to widen awareness of the current biodiversity crisis, stimulating discussions and positive responses to this rising crisis. At the same time, we want to contribute in bridging the divide between art and science, looking at new paths of interdisciplinary cooperation." 
                                                                                                --http://artandbiodiversity.org/

The Art and Biodiversity Partnership is based in Norfolk, England, on the east coast, north of London. Their collaborators are an interesting group, truly straddling the art and biodiversity line including: the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the University of East Anglia School of Biological Sciences, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, the Norfolk Biodiversity Partnership, and artists. 

They work on a themes of Invasive Alien Species, Climate Change, Habitat Loss, Over-exploitation, and Pollution, a well rounded, and generally agreed upon comprehensive list when thinking about threats to biodiversity. They also list a few projects that they address, such as a summer camp and a basketry exhibit. 

There isn't too much specific information about what they are working on and doing other than the four projects listed on their website. I am not sure if this is because they are a new organization or haven't updated their website in a while. With the sweeping topic of biodiversity loss, there is definitely no lack of inspiration. 

Despite the lack of more specifics, I love that this organization exists. We are in a biodiversity crisis and most people do not even know. There is so much information out there about this topic, but the short of it is that we are in a biodiversity crisis, it is driven by anthropogenic forces including climate change, and biodiversity loss is bad for the environment and bad for us too. But don't take my word for it: The United Nations Secratary General Ban Ki-moon: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36052#.Ub9qTPmyDb8 or http://www.globalissues.org/article/171/loss-of-biodiversity-and-extinctions or https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/28-6
And, just for clarification Biodiversity is the diversity of living things on the cellular, species, and ecosystem levels. 

IUCN 2010

I am personally involved in biodiversity loss in my own art, which started with my Global Amphibian Decline Series, but if anyone is looking for inspiration and/or an important issue to work on, here it is.

Convention on Biological Diversity: http://www.cbd.int/
IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature: http://www.iucn.org/
United Nations Decade of Biodiversity: https://www.cbd.int/2011-2020/
European Commission: Nature & Biodiversity: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/index_en.htm
Biodiversity is not a ranking issue with the United States Environmental Protection Agency.