This year’s International Day for Biological Diversity, on Thursday, 22 May 2025, highlights the inherent connections between people and the natural world through the theme, “Harmony with nature and sustainable development”. It underscores the need to achieve the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss – interlinked with achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Dr Shyama Kuruvilla, Director ad interim at the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre, talked with journalist Malini Shankar of the India-based Digital Discourse Foundation about how Traditional Medicine can support biodiversity conservation, from protecting medicinal plants through international cooperation to safeguarding traditional knowledge via access and benefit-sharing with local communities.
“On World Biodiversity Day, we honour Indigenous Peoples who have safeguarded nature-based knowledge for generations, the health care workers on the frontlines and the scientists at the frontiers – all working to heal both people and planet”, Dr Kuruvilla said.
With only five years left to achieve the near-term 2030 GBF targets and the SDGs, Traditional Medicine is a bridge connecting ancestral wisdom with modern science, local practices with global health goals, and cultural identity with sustainable development to restore balance for the health and well-being of people and planet.
Read the full interview here.