Saturday 5th June marked World Environment Day and this year it was hosted in Pakistan.
Firstly, what is World Environment Day? It has been celebrated every year since 1974 to raise awareness for environmental issues around the world such as air pollution, the rising sea level and illegal wildlife trade.
For more information, here is the World Environment Day website- https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/
This year the theme is Ecosystem Restoration, which means the focus is on helping damaged ecosystems and keeping healthy ecosystems intact. These are important to preserve because they clean our water, purify the air and overall help to regulate the climate. Ecosystems also provide us with raw materials and resources that are essential for us to survive.
Another aspect of a healthy Ecosystem is Biodiversity- a variety of life on earth, this helps the world adapt to harmful human activities and pollution. The extinction of a species can have a domino effect on the whole ecosystem therefore, it is very important to protect our ecosystems.
And this year the UN decade on Ecosystem Restoration has been launched, this aims to prevent and reverse Ecosystem damage around the world and in oceans. This can involve planting trees, changing diets, and cleaning up rivers and coasts all in aid of tackling climate change, an issue becoming more and more relevant as our world faces many more problems due to the actions of people.
But how is the restoration of our ecosystems being applied right now?
In the UK, a seagrass ocean rescue is taking place, already 2 hectares of seagrass have been planted and they aim to plant another 20 hectares over the next few years to protect the ecosystem of the ocean and the coast. And slightly further away in Borneo, they aim to restore 620 hectares of damaged forests while supporting local famers to market their sustainably sourced products.
Find out more on Ecosystem Restoration and examples of what is being done around the world here - https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/
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