Rio Conventions Pavilion: Linking biodiversity, climate change and sustainable land management

Story by Ms. Brianna Fruean, 14 years, Samoa

13 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro - At international UN environment conferences, the Rio Conventions Pavilion has become a key feature as a platform for people to come together and talk about three topics; biodiversity conservation, climate change and land sustainability.

It’s a forum for people to come and discuss issues and solutions for earth’s sustainable development.

Rio Conventions Pavilion based at the Athletes Park

“We can solve these problems together and figure out sustainable development in a synergistic fashion,” said David Ainsworth, the Information Officer at CBD Secretariat.

This initiative started at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya Japan in 2010, it was featured at the 16th & 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on the Convention on Climate Change in Cancun Mexico and Durban, South Africa; and was also present at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Changwon, Korea.

Now in Rio de Janeiro for Rio+20, the Pavilion is a special event. It is very inviting and can be found at Athletes Park which is open to the locals. Hoping to appeal to the local audience in Rio, one of the videos to be shown at the Pavilion will be in Portugese.

“Here in Rio, we want the pavilion to bring people together and discuss the different ways people have come about with these three main topics and so in the future we can look back and see the ways we’ve gotten to that future position. “

Throughout the conference, they have an active timetable lined up with different events such as the Coastal Climate Change Solutions event at 5pm to 7pm on Friday 15th June.

The Rio pavilion opened on Wednesday 13th of June and the last day scheduled is Sunday 24th of June.  For more information on the Rio Convention Pavilion please visit: http://www.riopavilion.org/