World Environment Day 2020: When We Destroy Biodiversity, We Destroy The System That Supports Human Life!
Today is 5th June, World Environment Day! This day is celebrated in over 100 countries. World Environment Day is observed to raise awareness about the environment and the importance of conserving the planet.
The theme this year is ‘Celebrate Biodiversity’. It is said that World Environment Day is the biggest annual event organised by the United Nations.
It is the United Nations’ flagship day for promoting worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years, it has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental public outreach and is celebrated by millions of people.
The United Nations Environment Programme shared an important reminder on the need to protect "our natural world".
They said: “Today is #WorldEnvironmentDay. We may be apart, but our voices will join as one. It’s time to appreciate the benefits that nature provides. It’s time to take action to protect & restore our natural world. It’s time #ForNature.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also took to micro-blogging site Twitter and tweeted:
Tracing back to the day’s establishment:
1972
This year marked a turning point in the development of international environmental politics: the first major conference on environmental issues, convened under the auspices of the United Nations, was held from June 5-16 in Stockholm (Sweden). Known as the Conference on the Human Environment, or the Stockholm Conference, its goal was to forge a basic common outlook on how to address the challenge of preserving and enhancing the human environment.
Later that year, on 15 December, the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating ‘June 5’ as World Environment Day.
World Environment Day was celebrated for the first time with the slogan ‘Only One Earth’.
Also on 15 December, the General Assembly adopted another resolution that led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the specialized agency on environmental issues.
UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
Today, in 2020, on the eve of a critical year for environmental decision-making, Colombia, Germany and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that- Colombia will host World Environment Day 2020 in partnership with Germany and that it will focus on biodiversity.
2020
Making the announcement on the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, Ricardo Lozano, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Jochen Flasbarth, Germany’s State Secretary for Environment, and Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, stressed that with one million plant and animal species facing extinction, there has never been a more important time to focus on the issue of biodiversity.
2020 is a critical year for nations’ commitments to preserving and restoring biodiversity, with China scheduled to host the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming. Next year also provides an opportunity to ramp up to the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), intended to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity.
Ricardo Lozano, Colombia’s Environment Minister said, “In Colombia, we will face an important challenge in 2020, and it is to host the 3rd and last OEWG [open-ended working group] meeting of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework before the COP in China. In Colombia, we are willing to work together to reach an agreement that allows us to move forward positively towards ambitious results in the COP that will meet us in China; we welcome Germany’s gesture of support in this global effort and look forward to a successful collaboration.”
Listed as one of the world’s ‘megadiverse’ countries and sustaining close to 10 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, Colombia ranks first in bird and orchid species diversity and second in plants, butterflies, freshwater fish and amphibians. The country has several areas of high biological diversity in Andean ecosystems, with a significant variety of endemic species. It also has part of the Amazon rainforest and the humid ecosystems of the Chocó biogeographical area.
According to a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.
About the current pandemic, the World Environment Day website says, "The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life. By upsetting the delicate balance of nature, we have created ideal conditions for pathogens - including coronaviruses - to spread.”
Above all, World Environment Day offers a global platform for inspiring positive change. It recognizes that global change requires a global community. It pushes for individuals to think for our mother earth and adopt ways that are not harsh towards nature. It requires every stratum of people to come together and contribute towards the cause and to live in harmony. It requires all of us.
So, do your bit!
