WCC News: Faith leaders to address unprecedented biodiversity loss in WCC International Biodiversity Day webinar

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will convene a webinar in collaboration with the Faiths for Biodiversity coalition and the ecumenical Season of Creation team on 22 May at 13:00 CEST. With the title "Biodiversity Crisis: Faith Action" the online event coincides with International Biodiversity Day, bringing together faith leaders, Indigenous communities, and environmental experts to address the 69 percent average loss in wildlife species abundance documented since 1970. Photo: Sean Hawkey/Life on Earth Pictures 14 May 2025 The World Council of Churches (WCC) will convene a webinar in collaboration with the Faiths for Biodiversity coalition and the ecumenical Season of Creation team on 22 May at 13:00 CEST. With the title "Biodiversity Crisis: Faith Action" the online event coincides with International Biodiversity Day, bringing together faith leaders, Indigenous communities, and environmental experts to address the 69 percent average loss in wildlife species abundance documented since 1970. “All parts of God's creation, animate and inanimate, are interconnected. Every living being in the biodiversity web of life has its intrinsic irreplaceable value and indispensable function in sustaining the life from God," said Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development. "If one part of biodiversity collapses, the whole Creation suffers.” The alarming rate of biodiversity loss requires urgent and collaborative action from all stakeholders, especially from churches as stewards of God's creation. Scientific data reveal that extinctions are now occurring at least ten to 100 times faster than in prehuman times, with roughly 28 percent of assessed species threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. "While conservation efforts from the secular world are helping, they are not enough to reverse nature loss," said Dr Louk Andrianos, WCC consultant for Care for Creation, Sustainability, and Climate Justice. "This webinar will help us explore ways that faith communities can contribute to biodiversity protection and ethical change." The webinar marks the beginning of the WCC's intensified focus on biodiversity protection through its recently created Working Group on Biodiversity and Creation Justice, which will develop a new ecumenical network for biodiversity and creation justice to empower and unite Christian churches in reversing biodiversity loss. Participants in the webinar will learn about the three-pronged approach of the new network: promoting theological foundation and bioethics at the community level with a special focus on Indigenous communities, facilitating interreligious collaboration and interdisciplinary studies at the ecumenical level, and advocating at the United Nations and other international forums. Register for the webinar here  See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 352 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland