Newsletter / Blog
2012-06-20 BirdLife International – 90 Today
The world’s
oldest international conservation organization celebrates 90 years today.
Ideas move the world but only if
people act upon them. And that’s exactly what happened at midday on June 20
1922, when a remarkable group of people from different countries met in London at the private home of the UK Minister of
Finance. United by their passion for birds they concluded that the only
effective answer to the growing trade of wild bird feathers or the threats to
migratory birds across the continents had to be through co-ordinated
international action.
This was the birth of the world’s
first true international conservation organisation, as Professor Kay
Curry-Lindahl decades later described the International Council for Bird
Preservation which later evolved into BirdLife International.
In the decades that followed the
world became more populated, industrialised, the problems for nature bigger and
more complex, and the need for a co-ordinated response even greater - a
vision that the world’s leaders attending the Rio+20 Earth Summit should
follow.
A need that resulted in the
creation of BirdLife International in 1993, today the world’s largest grass
root Partnership for nature with national organisations in 116 countries.
United by a common vision BirdLife today is a global Partnership for local
action and global impact.
“BirdLife International’s 90th anniversary
is an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve achieved together and help us focus
on the future we want,” said Dr Marco Lambertini, BirdLife’s Chief Executive.
“Much has changed in ninety years
but the fundamentals have not. The rationale for international collaboration
has only grown stronger and so the crucial need to empower local conservation
capacity around the world. It all seems so logical today but it was truly
visionary then”, commented Dr Lambertini.
BirdLife Partners around the
world will be marking the anniversary with a series of feature articles in
their magazines and other materials over the coming months, including marking
the occasion together at the BirdLife Partner World Congress next June 2013 in Ontario, Canada.
Active conservationists, once
numbered in dozens, are now counted in millions, with ten million supporters of
the BirdLife Partnership alone. We all owe a debt to the handful of people who
came together to form the ICBP at 12 noon on June 20 in 1922.
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