UN Secretary General: “Humanity is waging war on nature. Biodiversity is collapsing. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes.
“THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MORE URGENT NEED TO RESTORE DAMAGED ECOSYSTEMS THAN NOW.”
Ecosystems are the systems of inter-related, inter-dependent lifeforms on this planet
This year’s United Nations event launches “The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean.
ECOSYSTEMS – Why are they important?
They surround us and are a part of everything we experience but ecosystems mostly go unnoticed
– until they collapse.
Ecosystems occur when plants, animal and other organisms, weather and landscape all work together to form a bubble of life. Each part depends on all the other parts to survive. The entire surface of the Earth is a series of connected ecosystems in which humans are a part – whether we realise it or not.
Healthy ecosystems provide us with basic needs like clean air and water, food, pollination, fertile soil, timber, erosion control as well as the joy of living in wonderfully diverse environments as we do in the Tweed.
An ecosystem collapses when its parts are too damaged for the whole to function. Global insurer ‘Swiss Re’ has assessed that one fifth of countries worldwide are at risk of ecosystem collapse due to destruction of wildlife and habitat. Australia is one of those countries.
Protection of our environment can no longer be thought of as a “choice” and weighed up against the economic benefits of human development. When ecosystems fail we all lose, “Natural services” that we take for granted like pollination of crops and clean water will disappear whenecosystems fail. We won’t fully know the damage because we cannot see the many intricate connections of the ecosystem’s we exist within — until they are gone.
See also:
https://www.worldenvironmentday.global
https://www.unep.org/events/un-day/world-environment-day-2021
https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/
https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/environment-day
UN Secretary General: “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal.”
