The exhibition titled “The Beauty of Life on Earth” was on show at the Beijing Botanical garden, China, from 30 August to 19 September 2021. Developed following the concept of, and as a contribution to, the MAB 50 anniversary exhibition, the “Beauty of Life in Earth” was organized by the Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO) and the UNESCO Beijing Office in close cooperation with the MAB Secretariat, the Chinese MAB National Committee, the Endangered Species Scientific Commission of the People’s Republic of China (China CITES SA), the International Society of Zoological Sciences (ISZS) and the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS). This exhibition was also organized as a warm-up to the fifteenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15), which took place in Kunming in November 2021 and, as part of the MAB 50 Anniversary exhibition “It’s about life!” (see its virtual version at https://www.unesco.org/mab/50anniversary/en), will be showed in as many locations as possible in the course of 2021-2022.
Conceived as a multimedia adventure through the World Network of Biosphere Reserves and their remarkable examples of people living in harmony with their environments, the exhibition in Beijing included a selection of 16 biosphere reserves from Austria, China, Germany, Indonesia, Maldives, Morocco, Spain, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uruguay, and was focused on individuals deeply involved in biodiversity conservation and the promotion of their communities, such as scientists and experts with a lifelong commitment to biodiversity conservation, practitioners and activists working closely with local communities, indigenous people and artists, science popularizer and knowledge disseminators, photographers and travel enthusiasts. Through the exhibition, they tell us their stories in pictures, videos, reviews and lectures, and illustrate what biodiversity conservation and the promotion of harmony between nature and humankind mean to them. Approximately 20000 people visited the exhibition in Beijing and more than 400000 people visited the exhibition in Kunming (see Annex 11).