The Minister of the Environment, Cristina Narbona, today visited the stand that the Biodiversity Foundation has at the Juvenalia 2006 fair. This children’s and young people’s meeting will be held from 21 December to 30 December at the Juan Carlos Primero Exhibition Centre in Madrid, IFEMA.

Cristina Narbona has been able to share some time with the children who have come to this space, accompanying them in the different activities and games that the Biodiversity Foundation has prepared, so that they respect the environment.

Through its presence at Juvenalia 2006, the Biodiversity Foundation aims to sensitize and raise awareness among young people about the need to preserve the environment that surrounds us. Thus, it will disseminate the European initiative to stop the loss of biodiversity “Countdown 2010”, in which that year is set as the goal to achieve this objective, and to which the Biodiversity Foundation adhered last March. To this end, different activities have been prepared that will take place during the days in which this fair takes place at the stand of this entity.

The Biodiversity Foundation has designed a series of games and activities for the event aimed at disseminating the values of biodiversity among participants, focusing on the popularisation of endangered Iberian species among the youngest. Thus, the little ones will be able to learn about the problems of the most endangered species in our country through a dynamic group game, similar to the popular game of the goose, in which they will learn to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the care of the environment.

In addition to the lynx, the capercaillie and the brown bear, other secondary characters have been created, representing endangered species such as the ferreret, the Iberian wolf, the imperial eagle and the loggerhead turtle.

Likewise, the stand of the Biodiversity Foundation has a space where children and young people, individually, can access BioDíver, the most dynamic part of the website of this institution. Here they will find hobbies, stories, games and information that will help them learn more about the environment. BioDíver’s mascots, the bear “Robin”, the capercaillie “Paquito” and the lynx “Mayú”, will visit Juvenalia to accompany the children. These characters act as mascots of the stand and as protagonists of the interactive games that are included in an educational CD-Rom that is given to the participants along with different didactic and recreational material with which the Biodiversity Foundation will give to visitors to the stand.

On the other hand, this space will have a cinema room, where videos will be projected on the conservation of natural spaces, on the preservation of species such as the brown bear, on the representation of the story “The crown of Sant Nicolau” and on different topics related to the environment, so that the little ones learn to take care of the environment that surrounds them.