Ibsar launched its Biodiversity Village Award (BVA) or “Baldati Bi'ati” on June 9, 2011, at the Commodore Hotel, Beirut, Lebanon, under the program Power of Planting. This project which is funded by the Coca-Cola Foundation was conceived to stress the significant contribution of villages to nature conservation through various local environmental efforts and actions. For this first year of the project, Ibsar invited 21 towns to participate in the competition on account of their previous reforestation collaborations with the center. The participating towns along with Ibsar team will engage in participatory mapping workshops which will guide village communities through a self-assessment process resulting in the development of green village portfolios. These portfolios will include environmental, social, and cultural layers of the town.

 A jury consisting of AUB faculty members from various disciplines will evaluate the portfolios and select the winning town.  In September, Ibsar will hold a ceremony in honor of the participating towns. The ceremony will include the display of village portfolios and will feature a documentary after which the name of the winning town would be announced and a village festival will be organized in that town one month later, in November. The center aims to organize this competition on an annual basis through an open application procedure to support an increasing number of communities.