Paris on board for biodiversity!

25 June 2009, Paris (France). Yesterday, the City of Paris became a Countdown 2010 Partner. The signing ceremony took place in the garden created for the occasion in the City Hall square. Anne Hidalgo, First Mayor Deputy in charge of town planning and architecture, Fabienne Giboudeaux, Mayor Deputy for green spaces, Sebastian Winkler, Head of Countdown 2010, and Jean-Vincent Placé, President of Natureparif, together signed the Countdown 2010 Declaration.

“It is necessary to stop biodiversity loss by 2010. However, we are still behind our objectives” indicated Fabienne Giboudeaux, while highlighting the fact that biodiversity has become a “popular concern”. Indeed, “France is the largest consumer of pesticides in Europe and the third largest in the world” explained Fabienne Giboudeaux, underlining that the City of Paris has already decreased considerably its use of pesticides in parks and gardens, but still needs to reduce them in cemeteries where they are used against wild grasses.

Paris’s commitment for biodiversity is not new. The French Capital signed a biodiversity charter in 2004. In May 2008, 63 green spaces were certified for their ecological management without pesticides. By 2014, 450 parks and gardens of the City will be examined. Paris has 1.700 species of plants and mushrooms, among which the wild orchids that can be found in certain public gardens. Also, 1.400 animal species, including several hundreds species of insects (bees in 200 hives, in particular in Georges Brassens park and in Luxembourg park), and 164 sorts of birds of which a couple of hawks kestrels nesting in the Notre-Dame. A project to map Paris’s biodiversity is currently under way.

“The commitment to biodiversity of the City of Paris is an essential step in the ambitious approach undertaken by the Region Ile-de-France for biodiversity. We are convinced that the City of Paris will make the difference and give impulse to biodiversity conservation at the regional scale” declared Sebastian Winkler. About 20 municipalities of Ile-de-France have already signed the Countdown 2010 Declaration – a regional first in France.

Natureparif is the first regional agency for biodiversity in Europe and was created by the Region Ile-de-France in June 2008.