TEACHING FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

The term biodiversity is a combination of two terms viz., ‘bio’ which means life and ‘diversity’
which means variety or richness. Biodiversity is the number and variety of species found within a
specified geographic region. The term biological diversity was used first by wildlife scientist and
conservationist Raymond F. Dasmann in 1968. The term’s contracted form ‘biodiversity’ was
coined by W.G. Rosen in 1985. UNESCO designated 2011-2020 as the UN Decade on biodiversity.
Before that, the year 2010 was celebrated by UN as International Year of Biodiversity. The slogan
of the biodiversity year was “Biodiversity is life, Biodiversity is our life’. Various programmes on
this regard were conducted all around the globe, which emphasized the need and importance of the
participation of people from all walks of life, especially students all around the globe in the
biodiversity conservation activities. Education, being the most powerful tool for social change is
the precise weapon to fight against biodiversity depletion and degradation. This paper is an attempt
to describe the various strategies to empower students for biodiversity conservation.