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Today South African National Park (SANParks) celebrates International Day for Biological Diversity as it highlights and celebrates the critical role of conservation in societies across the world. The International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) emanates from the historic June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and has become synonymous with global discourse about sustainable development.

IDB and aims to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues around the world. It particularly draws attention to the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use as well as fair and equitable sharing of benefits.

This year’s theme is “Be part of the Plan”, which is a call to action to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by supporting the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, also referred to as The Biodiversity Plan. The Biodiversity Plan campaign aims to communicate and promote the 4 Goals and the 23 Targets of the framework that is essentially advocating for a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.

One of SANParks’ key mandates is the maintenance of biological diversity and as such SANParks is continually looking for ways to expand national parks or to create new ones that are managed in harmony with all role players in society. South Africa is the third richest biodiverse country in the world and is home to approximately 24 000 plant species and contains an entire floral kingdom, the Cape Floral Kingdom, within its borders.

SANParks is home to the Cape Floral Kingdom, situated in and around Table Mountain National Park, the smallest and richest of the six floral kingdoms that occur on Earth. The Cape Floral Kingdom is home to an amazing 8,200 plant species – of which around 80% are fynbos, it is also the only kingdom confined to one continent and many of the plants that occur here are endemic – which means that they occur nowhere else on earth. The significance of this hits home when you consider that the British Isles, 3 ½ times the size, boasts less than 1,500 plant species.

So, join SANParks today in celebrating International Day for Biological Diversity and be part of the plan to live in harmony with nature by 2050.