TIME IS RUNNING OUT

 

Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch and over the last century, we have destroyed half of our wetlands. As much as 50 percent of our coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90 percent of coral reefs could be lost by 2050, even if global warming is limited to an increase of 1.5°C. COVID-19 emergence and spread has highlighted how shrinking the area of natural habitat for animals, can create ideal conditions for pathogens – including coronaviruses – to spread. This World Environment Day, we focus on ecosystem restoration and its theme is “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.” Ecosystem restoration means healing nature and reversing the damage caused by humans. This World Environment Day will also kick off the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a global mission to revive billions of hectares, from forests to farmlands, from the top of mountains to the depth of the sea.

 

We don’t have much time left to save nature. Every moment we are inching closer to a place of no return, a place we will never want to go, a place that means certain doom. We still have time to overturn the effects of Climate change. Change now, conserve energy and spread the word. Resetting humanity’s relationship with nature was the focus of World Environment Day on June 5, which also marked the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a ten-year global push to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation. “It’s easy to lose hope when we think of the sheer magnitude of the challenges we face and the avalanche of bad news that we wake up to every morning,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). “But just as we caused the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis and the pollution crisis, we can reverse the damage that we’ve done; we can be the first generation to reimagine, to recreate and to restore nature to kickstart action for a better world.” Nature can and must be part of the solution as international momentum grows to decarbonize all sectors of our economies. Ecosystem restoration can help protect and improve livelihoods, regulate disease, reduce risk of natural disasters and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

 

It doesn’t matter where we are in this world, we all have an equal responsibility to take care of our environment. We may have not been the ones who started this crisis, but we have a duty to fix this because we all live on the same planet.