The month of June constitutes many national and international important days. One such day is asserted for the environment. June 5 is marked as World Environment Day and the day is observed every year. The basic idea behind this day is to spread awareness, encourage people to take steps to protect the environment across more than 150 countries.
History of World Environment Day:
According to UNESCO (United Nations of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), the year 1972 marked a turning point in the development of international environmental politics, with the first major conference on environmental issues, known as the Conference of the Human Environment, or the Stockholm Conference. Later that year, on 15 December, the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating June 5 as World Environment Day and urging “Governments and the organizations in the United Nations system to undertake on that day every year world-wide activities reaffirming their concern for the preservation and enhancement of the environment, to deepen environmental awareness.”
In 1974 the first World Environment Day was held with the theme “Only One Earth”. Even though the World Environment Day celebration has been held annually since then, in 1987 the idea for rotating the center of these activities through selecting different host countries began.
The theme of World Environment Day 2020:
The World Environment Day 2020’s theme is ‘Celebrate Biodiversity‘, and it will be hosted in Colombia, in partnership with Germany. The concern about biodiversity is both urgent and existential. Recent occurrences, from bushfires in Brazil, the United States, and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa, a global pandemic, and landfall of two devastating cyclones- Amphan and Nisarga, demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life, in which they exist.
In 2019, China hosted World Environment Day and the theme was “Beat Air Pollution”.
Biodiversity and Humans:
Biodiversity runs the blue planet Earth. It is nothing but the foundation that supports all life on land and below water. From providing clean air and water to natural disease resistance, biodiversity has affected every aspect of human existence like human health, nutritious foods, scientific understanding and medicine sources, and climate change mitigation. Changing, or removing one element of this web affects the entire life system and can produce negative consequences.
According to UNESCO, human actions, including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture, and acceleration of climate change, have pushed nature beyond its limit. It would take 1.6 Earths to meet the demands that humans make of nature each year. If we continue on this path, biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity, including the collapse of food and health systems.
The global spread of the coronavirus has cleared the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life.
As per the reports, it is estimated that, globally, about one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from diseases caused by coronaviruses; and about 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning that they are transmitted to people by animals.
