World Environment day is the United Nations (UN) day dedicated to environmental awareness and protecting our planet. This day is an opportunity to change our habits and to take action to help Mother Earth. According to a report by the UN, there are about 1 million plant and animal species at risk of extinction. In honor of World Environment Day, the annual Environment Conference will be addressing this and other issues.
Let’s discuss when World Environmental Day is and why it is so important to invest in our environment to invest in our future.
When is World Environment Day?
World Environment Day is celebrated every June 5th. This year, World Environment Day is on Saturday, June 5th, 2021. Every year there is an environmental theme assigned to the holiday and there is a conference to address current sustainability issues. This year’s theme is ecosystem restoration.
World Environment Conference 2021
Each year on June 5th, a different country hosts World Environment Day to promote worldwide environmental awareness. This year Pakistan will host for the first time, in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). As part of the “ecosystem restoration” theme for 2021, the conference will formally launch the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, an initiative to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems across the globe.
“In 2021, we must take deliberate steps to move from crisis to healing,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. The upcoming conference is expected to address healing steps such as reviving natural carbon sinks and closing the climate emissions gap by 25% by 2030.
What is ecosystem restoration?
Ecosystem restoration is helping the recovery of degraded or destroyed ecosystems and bringing them back to life through planting trees, cleaning up polluted natural areas, or giving natural spaces room to recover on their own. The goal is to reverse the degradation of systems such as lakes, oceans, wetlands, and forests.
Ecosystems support and make up life on our planet. The degradation of ecosystems contributes to poverty, climate change, and mass extinction of species. Restoring valuable ecosystems would have financial, social, and environmental benefits. It would help our planet heal and reduce climate change. But restoration is only possible with significant public support and buy-in, along with government action to fund and promote restoration initiatives.
What you can do to help restore natural ecosystems
There are many current organizations trying to address degraded ecosystems. To support the restoration efforts you can volunteer or donate to ecological projects. Two great examples of successful projects are the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware, one of the largest active wetland restoration projects in the world, and Pakistan’s Billion Tree Tsunami, which has now planted over a billion trees. For the next steps, that project has now encouraged the government to plant 10 additional billion trees over five years.
Forest restoration projects directly help fight climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and providing resources and jobs to nearby communities. When making charitable donations, consider donating to ecosystem restoration projects such as the ones mentioned above. You can also volunteer for local projects and help restore local species.
Brightera and Freedom Forever wishes you a happy World Environment Day
Brightera and Freedom Forever is passionate about the environment and restoring our planet’s ecosystems. Our teams are hard at work providing renewable energy that directly contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and promotes sustainable practices.