Husna, Amity University Kolkata
We have been exploiting and destroying our planet’s ecosystem for a long time. In every three seconds, the world loses enough forest equivalent to a football pitch. 50% of our coral reefs have already been lost and by 2050 an estimate of 90% of the coral reefs could be lost.
Due to ecosystem loss, we are deprived of carbon sinks such as forest and peatlands which has led to a global increase in Carbon dioxide levels and also led to catastrophic climate change causing natural disasters such as forest fires, cyclones, floods, and earthquakes adversely affecting the lives of many. Even half of the world’s GDP depends on ecosystem service, so a degradation in these services will create a risk for businesses and job opportunities. In other words, ecosystem collapse also leads to economic collapse. The shrinking of the natural habitat of animals has even created an ideal condition for the pathogens such as coronaviruses to spread easily. Due to environmental degradation, human health is heavily impacted as well, since there’s a reduction in the quality of air and water.
In order to overcome these big challenging times, World Environment Day 2021 will focus on the restoration of an ecosystem with the theme “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore”. Ecosystem restoration means to prevent or halt the damages of nature and let it heal from those damages. World Environment Day has been celebrated since 1974 on the 5th of June every year and would be hosted by Pakistan this year. This year’s World Environment Day is coinciding with the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) which is a global mission to revive billions of hectares of natural resources including forests, farmland, and oceans. The UN seeks to grab the attention of companies, investors, government, and communities for the urgency of the restoration of the ecosystem.
Although the ecosystem restoration needs to be done on a large scale it also requires small actions which every individual can take by planting trees, taking care of gardens, cleaning up trash wherever possible, and disposing of them appropriately. Every performance matters, irrespective of how small it is. We are all well aware of how the coronavirus crisis has brought many nations’ health systems to their knees. People were seen to be trying to find life-saving oxygen desperately for their loved ones. We definitely can’t afford another pandemic, so this World Environment Day let’s pledge to lend a hand towards saving the environment.
You can join the #GenerationRestoration movement through the official website of World Environment Day 2021. The actions which you can perform will contribute to the restoration.
Also read: H10N3 strain of bird flu and its first human infection
Sources:
1.https://www.un.org/en/observances/environment-day
2.http://www.worldenvironmentday.global/about-world-environment-day
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