IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Building capacity for biodiversity conservation in Ukraine

16 August 2012 | News story

CEC member Elena Tarasova announces a joint network and training project of the Ukrainian Environmental Club and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Starting on July 15, 2012 the Ukrainian Environmental Club (Ukraine) together with Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (United States) will collaborate on a new project “BUILDING CAPACITY FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN UKRAINE: NETWORK AND TRAINING SUPPORT.”

 Through this collaboration we will create and disseminate a comprehensive set of teaching and learning materials in biodiversity conservation to support training for graduate and undergraduate students at university levels, for protected areas staff, and for the business sector. Additionally, a Ukrainian Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners will be created during one and a half year of the project.

Elena Tarasova, coordinator of the project, says that “opportunities and resources for academic and professional training in conservation are limited in availability and scope in Ukraine, and it is crucial at this time that the international conservation community helps institutions of higher learning and conservation professionals to develop and disseminate educational resources and conduct training that will strengthen in-country conservation capacity.”

The project will support implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, namely Article 12 and 13 and Aichi Biodiversity Targets (Strategic Goal A: address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society, Target: by 2020, at the latest, people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably). The project will also serve to fulfill national policies in Ukraine, such as the National Strategy for Environmental Policy in Ukraine to 2020, and the National Action Plan for Environmental Protection in Ukraine for 2011-2015.

Additional information:

The Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) is an initiative of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and its partners in a number of countries around the globe. Its mission is to develop the capacity to sustain the world’s biological and cultural diversity. NCEP staff and project participants produce and disseminate a series of multi-component educational modules, each containing technical and theoretical background and exercises of the practical application of a specific conservation topics (http://ncep.amnh.org). NCEP focuses not only on content development, but also on helping faculty members and trainers reach their students and conservation practitioners most effectively.

Ukrainian Environmental Club (ecoclubua.com) is a non-profit organization founded in 2006 by alumni of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (ukma.kiev.ua) as a community of prospective environmental professionals and people who care about environment. Now the organization is focused on public environmental education, namely on the following topics: climate change, biodiversity conservation, and corporate social responsibility. Since 2010 Ecoclub is a member of UN Global Compact Network. Also one of Ecoclub’s projects “Ecotrail: Building Public Awareness” received a Green Award as a best educational project of 2011. Within the project practical sessions for general public on biodiversity were conducted and an Ecotrail was developed and equipped in one of the nature reserves. The organization has several information web sites ecoclubua.com, conservation.in.ua, where environmental news are published.