Update: March 17th, 2021
On March 17th, the Preparatory Group of the UNESCO Executive Board met to discuss a number of proposal in advance of the Executive Board meeting in April. This included the International Geodiversity Day concept. We are pleased to say that the response of Member States was resoundingly positive, and the initiative has been recommended for acceptance at the April meeting. Some of the comments of representatives are shown below:
Update: March 5th, 2021
We are pleased to announce that following the support of colleagues from around the world, the proposal for an International Geodiversity Day is now officially on the agenda for the next UNESCO Executive Board Meeting! UNESCO Member States supporting the proposal include: Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Italy, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Uruguay, Viet Nam, and Zimbabwe.
You can find the proposal here: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000375688
The proposal will now go forward to a vote at the 211th session of the Executive Board, which will take place between 7-21 April. All being well, the final decision will then be made at the 41st session of the UNESCO General Conference in November 2021, with the first International Geodiversity Day being on 6 October 2022. There is still time for more countries to show their support, so do continue to lobby your country’s UNESCO Permanent Delegation. Member States wishing to add their name to the proposal should contact the Portuguese Delegation.
Thank you once again for all your help and support towards this worthy endeavour. Over the coming weeks we will be in touch with more news on the upcoming vote, and also a number of online events we will be holding to highlight the International Geodiversity Day project. In the meantime, do refer to the website, geodiversityday.org, for more information.
With all good wishes,
José Brilha, Murray Gray, Jack Matthews, Zbigniew Zwolinski
Details of our team and how to contact us can be found HERE.
Why is Geodiversity Important to You?
Let us Know!
Geodiversity is intrisically connected to so many aspects of life - we want to hear why YOU think geodiversity is important, and deserves an International Day to highlight this. Send us a video of no more than 90 seconds, telling us who you are, where you're from, and why geodiversity is important to you. We're interested to hear from people all over the world! We will select a number of these to be included in our website, and who knows, they may become part of the first International Geodiversity Day!
Please email your videos to Jack Matthews, jack.matthews(at)oum.ox.ac.uk.
Some examples of videos already sent in can be found below, as well as throughout the website:
Institute of Applied Ecology (Oikon)
Northern Velebit National Park
Vis Archipelago UNESCO Global Geopark
