3-4th of June, 2010

INTERCOLLEGE Larnaca and the Friends of Nature Cyprus organized the 1st International Conference on Biodiversity. The Conference was opened by the chair person Lola Sanchez from INTERCOLLEGE supported by Dr. A. Djoghlaf, Executive-Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Mrs. Androulla Kaminara, Head of the European Commission Representation in Cyprus, Mr. Ch. Theopemptou, Cypriot Commissioner for the Environment and the Spanish Ambassador, H.E. Mr. Juan Jose Urtasun Erro in his function of the EU-presidency.

The two days conference hosted more than 140 attendees following the 33 speakers’ presentations. The speakers’ nationalities ranged from Costa Rica, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and the USA.

Interesting and interactive discussions followed all the presentations, which carried on during coffee breaks and lunches. Additionally, social events were organized to continue networking in a more relaxed atmosphere.

At the end of the conference and due to high encouragement from all the participants, the idea of organizing a 2nd Biodiversity conference was addressed. Several comments like “it has been very important for us to have the opportunity to present our research here in Cyprus” or “it has been great for young researchers to have this chance” or “now we are aware of how many people in Cyprus are interested on Biodiversity topics, you need to provide sustainability for the conference”. This motivated us to arrange a second conference.    

Many emails have been received congratulating the organizers and stressing that some new “networking cooperation” is already taking place especially in the area of marine research, green marketing, art and construction.

The students and lecturers of the Intercollege Larnaca Graphic Design Department worked together on this project.

“Our goal was to make something beautiful from something we would normally throw away”

Graphic Design Department

After building the bulk of the elephants we then covered them with sheets of old newspapers. Once we were satisfied with the shape we used strips of newspaper and glue to create the paper maché shell. Each elephant has 5 layers of paper maché. We created the shape of the ears using chicken wire, which we covered with newspaper and paper maché. This project took about six weeks from the collecting of the paper to the creating and finishing of the elephants.