Have you ever thought about how much pain our mother nature is bearing, due to our irresponsible activities? If you haven’t, then World Environment Day is the best day to think about it, as it’s the day we celebrate our environment and its values. What is World Environment Day? This day is annually celebrated on the 5th of June. This is one of the biggest annual events organized by the United Nations (UN), to open people’s eyes and to make them see the significance of nature. They want to inform people that nature should not be taken for granted and must be respected for its values.
Let’s peek a bit into the history of this significant day. In 1972 the United Nations established World Environment Day (WED), at the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment. Two years later in 1974, the first World Environment Day was held in Spokane, USA, under the theme of “Only One Earth”. In 1987 the organizing committee came up with the idea of celebrating this special day in a chosen host country. Since then, many countries, under many themes have hosted this significant event. Unfortunately, we haven’t got a chance yet to have it in our country. But in the future let’s hope we can.
We are celebrating the 47th World Environment Day this year. The theme for this year is “Ecosystem Restoration”. Many people will question what ecosystem restoration is. Ecosystem restoration means assisting the recovery of ecosystems that have been destroyed, as well as conserving the present ecosystems. In simple words, it’s any kind of work that’ll open the path of rebuilding the dying ecosystems on earth. For example, if you are planting one single plant, you are contributing to ecosystem restoration. It can take many forms such as growing trees, cleaning up rivers and coasts, greening cities, etc. In short, it’s all about cleaning the mess that we, human beings have made over the past generations on earth.
We can see in every year, the percentages of forests and green lands are decreasing rapidly. Not only those but also other ecosystems such as wetlands, oceans, farmlands, etc. are also at risk. So every one of us must give our support for this worldwide project of ecosystem restoration. Hence the generations ahead would not face challenges, due to poor living conditions on Earth.
The fundamental point of ecosystem restoration is, to recreate what we’ve lost as ecosystems and stopping the over exploitations of natural resources, that are left. To do that, contributions of countries, governments, societies, and individuals are a necessity. So we can start doing it from our own homes; you can clean the small environment that you are exposed to and always remember to refrain from activities that may harm any resource of nature. We all learn these things since our childhood as good habits. But it’s questionable whether most of us are practically following these things.
Indeed, it’s hard to reverse the harm that we’ve done to our mother nature. But it’s also true that we can change the future. So starting from today, let’s chain together and work on restoring ecosystems as it’s the best solution for this present situation.
We proudly say that we’ll build homes on Mars in the future. And we are searching for possibilities to do that. But isn’t it more important to think and work on protecting our current home, Earth?
So while celebrating World Environment Day, we should keep in our minds that this day is only a remembrance for us to rethink our environment. The real Environment Day is not just one day but each and every day. We have no time to waste. We have to protect our environment and conserve it for our future generations. Let’s try to spend our day-to-day life with that in our mind.
Written by: Shehara Nethmini
Image Courtesies:
- Featured image: https://bit.ly/34QveBA
- Fig. 1: https://bit.ly/3uTNLrh
- Fig. 2: https://bit.ly/34QvUqC
- Fig. 3: https://bit.ly/34Q3op5
- Fig. 4: https://bit.ly/2Rqav4p
References:
- https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/beginners-guide-ecosystem-restoration
- https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/what-is-theme-history-and-significance-of-world-environment-day-993984.html