From November 9th to 11th, the International Dark Night Association (IDA) held its 2018 annual meeting in Utah, USA. Li Ruoyu, a volunteer of the CBCGDF Star Work Committee, attended the meeting as a representative and introduced the efforts and results of carrying out starry sky protection work in the Chinese inland areas.

The theme of this annual conference is "Looking Up! - Celebrating 30 Years of Dark-Sky Advocacy" to celebrate the 30th anniversary of IDA. The annual conference attracted nearly 200 avid starry sky protectors, and in three days, the participants presented the results and exchanged experience through reports, posters, group seminars, course explanations, awards ceremony, theme dinner, starry party, evening social activities and other activities.

Before the poster presentation on Saturday afternoon, Li Ruoyu gave a brief report on the annual results, and highlighted some interesting topics to the participants. The success attracted many people's attention.

In the poster display session, the large number of people who read, communicated and expressed congratulations showed that the CBCGDF’s participation in the starry sky protection, the event design and the future planning are at the forefront of the international affirmation and approval.

On Saturday morning, the annual conference host, Senior Editor of Sky & Telescope magazine and former IDA director Kelly Beatty mentioned his experience with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and said that the WWF-US values the energy saving significance of the Earth Hour. However, he deeply regretted that he did not see the importance of turning off the lights for night protection and biodiversity protection. In contrast, in China, the CBCGDF successfully cooperated with WWF-China and held a series of special events. This interesting comparison won everyone's praise.

Since IDA has many chapters around the world, many of them are only responsible for a small area, so it is particularly valuable for the Star Work Committee to have a certain influence throughout the country. For regional chapters, the design of local night protection activities is particularly important, which is why the small activities of Earth Hour all over China can attract the attention of many participants. In particular, the Starry Sky Concert combines the protection of the night with the art performance. The design of this kind of event attracts a lot of eyeballs. Many people come to ask for details and express that they will learn this form and apply it to their own community.

In addition, some participants pointed out that in addition to strengthening the protection of existing places with better dark night conditions, China must also try to find ways to control the city lights that have been seriously polluted. Therefore, in the future, the Star Work Committee should also make corresponding efforts according to the national conditions.

In addition to sharing experiences, the University of Utah also introduced their Dark Night Learning Center and the upcoming interdisciplinary dark night study minors and preparations for the dark night professional journals, providing a new direction for night protection. The cultivation of the next generation of night protectors has also entered the field of vision as a new direction. Professors and scholars from various fields of science and technology also introduced the results of a large number of collection and analysis of light damage data, including the night sky brightness monitoring of the International Astronomical Union, the University of Hong Kong, the National Astronomical Observatory, etc. The two heads of the network project from Hong Kong also won this year's Night Sky Guardian Award. CBCGDF also hopes that in the near future, mainland China will have more experts and scholars to participate in interdisciplinary professional research, education and training, scientific testing and analysis of dark night protection, so that the night protection can approach the general public, in order to have the direction of specialization has been fully developed.

(Photo courtesy: Roy the CBCGDF's volunteer)

Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4937/6732.html

By / Shuya