IUCN

Biodiversity plays an important role in the day-to-day life of a hotel. From the food in the restaurant and wood in furniture and fittings, to the amenities in the spa, the products of biodiversity are everywhere inside hotels. Outside, plants and animals make a hotel’s public areas and gardens attractive for guests, while beyond the hotel gate, national parks, green spaces, coasts and natural habitats provide guests with opportunities for recreation and enjoyment.

This beautiful picture book is an effort to present a cross section of the activities recently implemented by IUCN Sri Lanka in encouraging wise use of natural resources in that country. It highlights examples from the diverse portfolio of work that the Sri Lanka office is doing to provide the reader with a flavour of the limited but rewarding involvement in the natural resources management in Sri Lanka.

The Mediterranean Sea is a virtually enclosed basin that is frequented by three sea turtle species. In the last three decades the interest in sea turtles in the Mediterranean has continuously increased, motivated by a growing concern for these threatened animals. There has also been a great interest and need to develop adequate knowledge about their threats and about the biological and ecological parameters that are relevant for their conservation.

One of the innovative features of the first World Conservation Congress was the organisation of some 57 workshops divided into ten major streams. These ranged from topics as diverse as sustainability in artisanal fisheries to managing mountain protected areas to business and the environment. This publication presents a summary of all the workshops, the main speakers and the papers they presented.

The challenge of building biodiversity business is not trivial. Biodiversity is still largely neglected by private finance. There is a need to develop new business models and market mechanisms for biodiversity conservation, and to persuade the public and policy makers that biodiversity (or component ecosystem services) can be conserved on a commercial basis.