From small to big - our fragile biodiversity deserves protection
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Biodiversity is essential for safeguarding the future of our planet, home to millions of species. But biodiversity is in serious decline. The extinction rate has increased by as much as 1000 times. Today up to 30 per cent of species are threatened to be lost. One of the major threats to biodiversity is climate change.
Airbus is taking this challenge seriously. Through continuous innovations the European aircraft manufacturer has managed to reduce fuel burn and CO2-emissions of its aircraft by 70 per cent over the past 40 years. The all new double-deck A380 consumes today less than 2.9 litres per passenger and 100 kilometres and is ready to fly with alternative fuels. Airbus is looking into all kind of future aircraft concepts to improve the environmental performance of aviation even further.
Developing game-changing and environmentally sound technologies is only one part of the Airbus' strategy to shape a sustainable future of aviation. The company has launched, together with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and National Geographic a world-reaching biodiversity photo contest. "See the bigger picture" aims to strengthen the awareness among the youth around the world to look into all the aspects of conserving our fragile biodiversity.
The "See the Bigger Picture" photo contest calls children of 6 to 16 to take photos of biodiversity, to illustrate the diversity of nature around them and to consider their role in conserving it. Pictures can be uploaded on www.seethebiggerpicture.org, experiences be shared with a community of 300,000 children already involved from all parts of the world. For everybody there is a unique chance to win a trip to National Geographic's headquarters in Washington D.C.
"See the Bigger Picture' is a joint initiative between Airbus, the National Geographic Society and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The initiative supports 'The Green Wave' for biodiversity and it leads up to the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010. The photo competition was launched in June 2009 and ends on September 8th. It is a campaign designed to stimulate and raise worldwide awareness on biodiversity and the preservation of threatened ecosystems amongst children, families and educators.
