International Implementation

BioD Background

Electronic interaction became a part of the 21st century's culture. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, different online forums and communities are growing in popularity. For example, Facebook has over 800 million active users and "On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day" ( Facebook Statistics, 2011). While many of the social networks are intended for individual use, some specifically target businesses and corporations. For instance, "Forum of Private Business" gives firms in UK an opportunity to join a community that promotes growth of businesses. The "Forum of Private Business" attracted many members among which are Applied Metal Technology & G&D Enterprises, Focused Nutrition Ltd, Blue Autumn Ltd and others. ("Our Members", 2011).

There are already several online forums for exchanging ideas and proposals about biodiversity. For example, "Biodiversity Forum" is an informal forum where individuals all over the world can join to have free discussions on topics such as General Genetics Discussion, Earth Sciences, Evolution and others. (Biodiversity Forum, 2011) Despite the variety of topics present on the forum, it does not focus on biodiversity loss and ways to battle it and does not invite discussion on issues facing biodiversity and ways to solve them. "The Environment Site: World's Largest Independent Environmental Forum", on the other hand, does foster discussion on actual ecosystems, species and their services and ways to battle the existing problems; however, most of the recent posted topics have few responses, ranging from zero to ten replies. (Environment Site: World's Largest Independent Environmental Forum, 2011). The current biodiversity-related forums do not attract attention of the masses and especially not the attention of the private sector and governments. In order for biodiversity to have a greater online presence in the social networks, biodiversity forums have to be approached from a different direction and supported more on the governmental scale.