This year’s student co-chairs Kai and Lauren are here to share with you a peek at preparations for this year’s Biodiversity Days event series. To learn more and register for events, check out our webpage here, more details to come as May approaches.
May 22nd is the International Day for Biological Biodiversity! UBC Botanical Garden will be celebrating biodiversity the whole month of May through a series of fun and inspiring events in collaboration with local organizations. The United Nations theme for 2026 Biodiversity Day is “Acting locally for global impact”. Through our Biodiversity Days event, we aim to highlight and connect the groups protecting and enhancing biodiversity in Metro Vancouver. By working together with our community partners, we hope to inspire more people to learn about the importance of local biodiversity and take actions to protect biodiversity.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of living organisms across genetic, species, and ecosystem levels. Biodiversity is essential to our existence yet is declining in all regions of the world and across all spatialscales1. The loss of biodiversity impacts water, ecosystem function, food security, and resilience to climate change. Collective efforts to halt the loss of biodiversity and to conserve and sustainably use it is the challenge of our time. One of the goals of Biodiversity Days is to illustrate local examples of people, organizations, and individuals making impact. For 2026, we are pleased to share that UBC Vancouver is launching its first Biodiversity Action Framework in June. The Biodiversity Framework outlines biodiversity priorities and guides future actions for UBC Vancouver to meet its increasing growth needs while protecting and enhancing biodiversity on UBC Vancouver Campus. The Framework’s key objectives are to:
- Support healthy urban ecosystems
- Strengthen climate resilience through campus landscapes
- Support community wellbeing
- Encourage biodiversity engagement
Join us for the 2026 Biodiversity Days to hear from local experts, meet like-minded people and learn what you can do to take action.
For our 6th annual Biodiversity Days , we are happy to announce 16 new and returning events! Join us for a month full of wonder, knowledge sharing, and connection.
We would like to recognize that the land in which we share these events is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm people. As a land-based organization, UBC Botanical Garden is thankful for their stewardship and partnership.
Children & Family Favourites:
Our biggest, and family favourite event of the month, Family Nature Walk is back on May 16th during the long weekend! This is a perfect event for families who are looking to go out into the nature and learn more about our local natural environment! There will be environmental learning stations throughout the Garden where families can enjoy nature-inspired arts, crafts, and learning experiences! We are grateful and excited to have community partners join us, including – Nature Kids BC, Cultivara and Vancouver Fruit Tree Project, to showcase their work and provide some fun activities as well!
On May 2nd, we will be holding a booth at Beaty Biodiversity Museum’s Nature Club! Come say hi to our team and enjoy the regular museum programming, Raising Big Blue movie, museum tours, and more!
Another perfect event for family is Science Rendezvous on May 9th! This year, we will have an outreach booth at Beaty Biodiversity Museum’s Niche. At the booth, families can touch and see several species of mosses up close using hand lenses and a microscope. If you’re up for the challenge, spin the wheel and win native species inspired stickers for answering questions about biodiversity!
Biocultural Diversity Events:
One of our key goals for Biodiversity Days is to promote biocultural diversity. Biocultural diversity is the variety in natural and cultural systems around the world. As humans, we have always cultivated connections with plants, animals, soils, and water around us. Richness in these connections can result in more care and attention for biodiversity. This year, we are excited to have two events that specificallyfocus on fostering biocultural diversity.
On May 21st, which is World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, we will deliver Multilingual Garden tours! The tours of the Garden will be given by our amazing volunteer guides in languages such as Spanish, Mandarin, and French.
On May 31st, we are collaborating with the Vancouver Black Library to offer a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) Reading Buddies program in the Garden’s Forest Theater. Families will read, learn, and celebrate biocultural diversity through reading stories written by authors with diverse backgrounds.
Nature Tours:
Some of my favourite Biodiversity Days events are our guided nature tours. We work in collaboration with local groups and labs across UBC to bring science to our community. All ages and experience levels are welcome! Our returning line up for 2026 includes the Morning Bird Walk with Bev and Bill Ramey, a Biodiversity Tour at UBC Farm, a Campus Bat Walk with M2L2 lab, and a night-time Moth Walk at UBC Farm with PIEE lab. Make sure to bring a flashlight for that one to see some ‘goth butterflies’!
An exciting new nature tour this year includes a Guided Tree Climbing Experience with Cultivara at UBC Botanical Garden. Founder and lead guide Tom Zadorsky will share his knowledge on how trees support our local biodiversity. To make this event more accessible for our community we are running a pay-what-you-can model, donations recommended at $30. Over 450 climbers have entered the canopy to date! Will you be next?
Near the end of the month, we have a Tree Walk with RISE lab where participants can experience the intersections of science and wellbeing with a Campus Tree Walk and Forest Bathing tour, keep an eye on our website for the date to be released!
Science and Community:
Beyond the nature tours, further connections are made between scientists and our community. An event that has fostered these connections year after year is the SEEDS Research to Action Showcase, where UBC students get to share their research projects with scientists and staff, making space for networking and knowledge sharing.
Feeling inspired and wanting to support community science across campus? Help us collect biodiversity data for the month of May through our returning iNaturalist Biodiversity Days BioBlitz! To access the project, follow this link or check out our webpage for more details.
Total List:
All month – iNaturalist Campus-Wide BioBlitz
May 2nd – Garden Booth at Beaty Biodiversity Museum’s Nature Club
May 7th – SEEDS Research to Action Showcase
May 9th – Science Rendezvous at Beaty Biodiversity Museum
May 9th – Morning Bird Walk in the Garden
May 13th – Biodiversity Farm Tour
May 15th – Schools Nature Walk at UBC Botanical Garden (New!)
May 16th – Family Nature Walk at UBC Botanical Garden with Cultivara (New!)
May 21st – Multilingual Garden Tours for UN Day of Biocultural Diversity
May 21st – MOA: Tidalectics: Oceanic Biodiversity and Cultural Resilience
May 22nd – Art Club at MOA: Biodiversity day
May 22nd – UN Day of Biological Diversity Media Release
May 24th – Guided Tree Climbing Experience with Cultivara at UBC Botanical Garden (New!)
May 27th – Bat Walk on UBC Campus
May 29th – Moth Walk at UBC Farm
May 31st – VBL BIPOC Reading Buddies at UBC Botanical Garden
More information and registration for these events can be found here!
Funding Acknowledgement:
We would like to express our deep appreciation to all our amazing partners who have worked with us to create inspiring learning experiences in an accessible way. Biodiversity Days is made possible by the funding from UBC Botanical Garden Community Outreach Fund and SEEDS Sustainability Program.
We would love for you to come join our Biodiversity Days events to look and learn about your surrounding biodiversity, connect and act with people towards the shared goal of protecting biodiversity, and share your learnings with family, friends, and more!
Keep an eye on our social media pages for special features of the events to come!
We hope to see you there!
Authors:
Lauren Kufske and Kai Owa work at UBC Botanical Garden, where they serve as Sustainability and Community Programs Facilitators. In their roles, they collaborate with Dr. Tara Moreau and the Sustainability and Community Programs Team to bring community events to life. Kai and Lauren are both in their final year at UBC. Kai is studying urban forestry with a focus on making nature more accessible for everyone in cities. Lauren is pursuing a degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Sustainable Food Systems.
