the climate is heating up too quickly for people and nature to adapt;
habitat loss and other pressures mean an estimated 1 million species are threatened with extinction;
pollution continues to poison our air, land and water.
The way out of this dilemma is to transform our economies and societies to make them inclusive, fair and more connected with nature. We must shift from harming the planet to healing it.
The good news is the solutions and the technology exist and are increasingly affordable.
OnlyOneEarth is the campaign for World Environment Day 2022. It calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect and restore our planet.
OnlyOneEarth Practical Guide
UNEP has published a practical guide outlining some of the collective, transformative actions that governments, cities, businesses, organizations and individuals can take to protect and restore our planet. | Explore it >>
For too long, we have been exploiting and destroying our planet’s ecosystems. 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 per cent of our coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90 per cent of coral reefs could be lost by 2050, even if global warming is limited to an increase of 1.5°C.
Ecosystem loss is depriving the world of carbon sinks, like forests and peatlands, at a time humanity can least afford it. Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown for three consecutive years and the planet is one pace for potentially catastrophic climate change.
The emergence of COVID-19 has also shown just how disastrous the consequences of ecosystem loss can be. By shrinking the area of natural habitat for animals, we have created ideal conditions for pathogens – including coronaviruses – to spread.
With this big and challenging picture, the World Environment Day is focus in the ecosystem restoration and its theme is “Reimagine. Recreate.Restore.”
Ecosystem restoration means preventing, halting and reversing this damage – to go from exploiting nature to healing it. This World Environment Day will 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.
Only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change and stop the collapse of biodiversity.
India is one of the mega biodiversity hotspots contributing to the world’s biological resources. Central India, including the three states: Madhya Pradesh. Chattisgarh and Rajasthan, has diverse water resources such as streams, rivers, reservoirs, sub-terrain aquatic systems, traditional lakes and domestic ponds that harbour a wide variety of freshwater fishes (Sarkar and Lakra 2007). Fisheries resources occupy a prominent place in the economy of any country.
HARNESSING NATURE MAGAZINE | Vol. 2 | Issue 3 | June 2020 Official magazine of the IUCN CEM South Asia Cover photo: Grassland Shola Matrix and associated species in the Western Ghats, India (Photo: Deepu Sivadas)
The region has many mega biodiversity hotspots, key wetlands and shares several hydro-geological features in important topographic regions and ecosystems. South Asia is home to many traditional and indigenous communities dwelling in remote as well as sensitive and fragile ecosystems. These communities have helped in shaping the conservation and management of natural resources of these sensitive and fragile ecosystems. Many of these sustainable practices are still relevant in this changing world. […]
IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.
About IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) is one of the six commissions that unite over 10,000 volunteer experts from a range of disciplines. Together we assess the state of the world’s natural resources and provide the Union with sound know-how and policy advice on conservation issues.
Sustainable forest management and conservation management concepts include the activities to safeguard forests from biodiversity loss, natural calamities as fire, landslides and enhance the economic, social and environmental values of all types of forests for the betterment of humans. One of the recent severe threats to the forest sector has been a perennial challenge at the global level is the dominance of invasive alien species. […]
A study conducted along with K. Mohan Raj, a senior expert in forest conservation, Arun Sankar of Tamil Nadu Green Movement and Santhi Vasantha Malar of Tribal Foundation in the protected areas in the Southern Western Ghats namely Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Palani Hills Wildlife Sanctuary and Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary revealed that a host of invasive alien species had made a bio-invasion in the forests, which are destructive, detrimental with devastating results to the forest and water resources.
These Reserves are abundant with herbivores as elephant, Indian gaur, spotted deer, sambar, wild boar, barking deer, Nilgiri tahr, four species of monkeys and predators as tiger, leopard, wild dog, hyena, fox and unique reptiles as cobra, king cobra and vipers. […]
The observations of the study are that the invasive species dominate the native ground flora and choke the survival of native and endemic herbaceous species. There are reports of mixing of toxic resins from some of the invasive species during monsoon with water polluting the soil quality and water streams, and consequently, hill stream fishes, crabs and other organisms are affected.
The spread of invasive species, lead to a scarcity of herbaceous fodder, forcing the herbivores to modify their foraging behaviour and seeking new pastures. Consequently, elephants, Indian gaur, spotted deer, sambar and wild boar raid crops in indigenous people settlements, and fringe villages for food that lead to a chain of human versus animal conflict. Seeking and following their prey, big cats as tiger and leopard follow the herbivore trails and enter into human settlements, which escalate into additional conflicts. All these are due to the sheer anthropogenic activities, the primary driver of forest ecosystem modifications.
S. S. Davidson was one of the pioneer educators of the environmental movement based at Tamil Nadu, India and member of IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management
For additional learning resources visit the website of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), “a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi”:
Communication for Awareness CSE’s publications and informational products have been its strength and they have always combined research and readability to get the message across.
CSE’s tools for awareness raising are periodicals, publications, films/short spots, briefing papers, exhibitions, posters and other products. CSE’s informational products reach people in more diverse ways such as features service, website and e-news bulletins. […]
Up-to-date reports by Indian experts and journalists
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