UNESCO's 2019 Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Youth Forum kicked off on September 15 in the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve, northeast China.

About 270 young people from 90 countries participated in the forum themed "Committed to Biodiversity".

The five-day "2019 MAB Youth Forum" has a special focus on the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), which was scheduled to be held in Kunming, capital city of southwest China's Yunnan Province in 2020.

Qu Xing, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, expressed his hope that the Forum would encourage more young people to be creative, vigorous and involved in biological protection.

China was one of the first countries to have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992.

The Forum is organized by the UNESCO MAB Programme and the UNESCO Beijing Office in cooperation with the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve in Jilin Province.

Participants were expected to propose an MAB youth declaration on CBD COP15's biodiversity framework and 2050 vision.