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The period from 2011 to 2020 has been declared the United Nations Decade on Bio­di­ver­sity. The World Asso­ci­a­tion of Zoos and Aquar­i­ums (WAZA) wel­comes this deci­sion of the UN Gen­eral Assem­bly accord­ing WAZA’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Dr. Ger­ald Dick.

He says that WAZA, rep­re­sent­ing the world com­mu­nity of zoos and aquar­i­ums and hold­ing a work­ing agree­ment with the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity, will fully sup­port the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity and related edu­ca­tional and com­mu­ni­ca­tion activities.

Accord­ing WAZA’s web­site: “Mod­ern zoos and aquar­i­ums are play­ing an increas­ingly active and impor­tant role in con­serv­ing species in their nat­ural habi­tat. Zoos and aquar­i­ums are all about bio­di­ver­sity. Due to a recent study, zoos and aquar­i­ums, world­wide, invest at least 350 mil­lion US $ in con­ser­va­tion activ­i­ties Over 700 mil­lion peo­ple visit annu­ally one of the 1300-​plus zoos and aquar­i­ums that exist world­wide and are exposed to envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion pro­grammes. The audi­ences are almost as diverse as bio­di­ver­sity itself. Zoo and aquar­ium vis­i­tors rep­re­sent a broader cross-​section of local, national and regional soci­eties. There appears to be a basic need of humans to con­nect with nature — with bio­di­ver­sity. As such, zoos and aquar­i­ums, both indi­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, rep­re­sent an amaz­ing force for inspir­ing peo­ple, for catalysing atti­tudes and behav­iors in sup­port of bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion. Col­lec­tively, zoos and aquar­i­ums also rep­re­sent an untapped deliv­ery mech­a­nism for coun­tries to ful­fill some of their oblig­a­tions to the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity (CBD).” (Source: web­site WAZA, 13.01.2011)