The Darwin Initiative

DARWIN 200 INITIATIVE

Dear Darwin Project Leaders

I am writing to all Darwin Initiative project leaders asking for your assistance in helping the cross-Government action to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth next year, which is being coordinated by the Natural History Museum.

Both myself and Defra are very keen to use the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth to raise the profile of the Darwin Initiative and biodiversity conservation more generally, and I think this is an excellent opportunity. One of the key things that Defra is looking to do in this area is to work with the Department for Children, Schools and Families to raise biodiversity conservation amongst the younger generation.

One of the aims of the Darwin Initiative is to build capacity in developing countries. I know that to achieve this, many of you have worked with children, schools and local communities in the host countries where your Darwin Initiative project is based. We would therefore be grateful if you could reply to us on the following points:

• How are your projects engaging with primary and secondary schools in the countries where your projects are taking place?
• Can you give some examples of your work - i.e. videos for schools, leaflets, visits, photographs produced by projects or interactive blogs that we could use to publicise as case studies?
• Do you, or the organisation you work for, work with schools in the UK at all?
• Would you as project leaders be prepared to do more schools work in the UK (i.e. provide information about your project on request from schools) over the next year to promote the Darwin Initiative around Darwin 200? We would not expect you to have a working knowledge of Origin of the Species or the Voyage of the Beagle!

This initiative will, I believe, not only help broaden the appeal of the Darwin Initiative and enhance interest in your own projects, but it will also enable schools to have a much greater understanding of how Darwin's work on biodiversity is being carried forward today.

I would be very grateful if you could get back to Vicki Giles (e mail: Darwin@defra.gsi.gov.uk) with your responses by 31 October, so that we can take this forward.

The Department for Schools, Children and Families will be featuring Darwin 200 in two issues of its ‘Teachers Magazine' (one for primary schools and one for secondary). It would be great if we could get some good examples from you of Darwin Initiative projects to feature in these issues.

Yours sincerely,

David Macdonald

Darwin Advisory Committee Chairman

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