Dilmah Conservation celebrates positive environmental action with SLAAS and FOGSL
5th June 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka – As part of its ongoing activities to celebrate World Environment Day 2012 (WED) in Sri Lanka, Dilmah Conservation carried out the ‘Go Wild on the Web’ and ‘Nature Database’ Initiatives for a second consecutive year. Held in partnership with the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) and the Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka (FOGSL), the initiatives aim to encourage children and youth to become champions of the environment through positive action. This year, Dilmah Conservation tied up with the Funday Times, as the official media partner.
World Environment Day is an annual event of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) aimed at celebrating positive environmental action all over the world. WED activities can take place all year round but is celebrated specially on 5 June every year, involving everyone from everywhere. WED was initiated in 1972 and has grown steadily since with celebrations carried out throughout the world.
The importance of information technology to keep ahead in today’s context is a need identified by the Government of Sri Lanka who has invested considerably in providing IT literacy and education to Sri Lankan youth. The Go Wild on the Web project was initiated to inspire these young minds to invest their energies in an original creative design for a nature inspired website. The sites required to be informative, educative and most importantly be inspired by the wealth of nature around us.
The Nature Database programme encouraged individuals or teams to identify and document the flora in their own home environments and schools to enable the creation of a database with names and visual identities of different plant varieties found in Sri Lanka. This will enable the quick identification of plants, especially endemic or medicinal varieties found scattered around the country. Once fully functional, the database will fill a lacuna in information regarding certain plant varieties and their destinations.
WED is celebrated with a new theme each year and based on the current theme, numerous activities are either held on that day or initiated for the year. The 2012 theme for World Environment Day is Green Economy: Does it include you? in keeping with the growing trend towards being conscious and living consciously.
The winners for each category will be selected by a distinguished panel of judges, who will base their judgment on the user friendliness of the websites and the quality of the images taken. The winners will be announced shortly.
Dilmah Conservation was initiated in 2007 by the Dilmah Group to incorporate environmental conservation efforts into the MJF Charitable Foundation, which focuses on social justice. Dilmah Conservation works towards the sustainable use of the environment in partnership with other credible organisations. The pledge made by Dilmah founder Merrill J. Fernando to make business a matter of human service is deeply ingrained in the work carried out by Dilmah Conservation. For additional information visit our website at www.dilmahconservation.org
