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INTRODUCTION
World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 which is the United Nation’s (UN) primary channel to encourage worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. In the 1974 campaign was first held with the theme “Only One Earth” during the first day of the UNs Conference on the Human Environment. It has been a flagship campaign for raising awareness on emerging environmental issues from marine pollution, human overpopulation, and global warming, to sustainable consumption and wildlife crime. The theme for the year 2020 is – “CELEBRATE BIO-DIVERSITY”. “The theme is biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events, from bushfires in Brazil, the United States, and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, a global disease pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life, in which they exist.”
The theme for World Environment Day focuses on its role in providing the essential infrastructure that supports life on Earth and human development. The major objective of the day is to spread awareness and to remind people that they have a role to play in preventing the loss of biodiversity and preserving nature for our future. The day is observed over 100 countries and each year, it has a new theme that governments, corporations, communities, NGOs, and celebrities adopt to advocate environmental causes. The theme for the year 2019 was “Beat Air pollution”. Every year a different country hosts the event where the official celebrations take place. The focus on the host country helps highlight the environmental challenges it faces and supports worldwide efforts to address them. This year the day is be hosted in Colombia, in partnership with Germany but will be rescheduled for 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What is meant by the term “Bio-diversity“? The term ”Bio-diversity” was coined by Walter G. Rosen in 1985.
The term “ecosystem” is defined as a biological community of interacting animals & plants and their environment.
- Importance of Biodiversity
“Biodiversity plays a major role in maintaining the ecological balance of the ecosystem. In Biodiversity each individual species has a major role to play in the ecosystem.”
The stability of the ecosystem increases with the diversity of these species.
- Types of Biodiversity
There are three main types into which Biodiversity can be broadly categorised. They are-
- Species Diversity (i.e. diversity between species)-It is defined as a variety of species within a particular region or habitat.
- Ecosystem diversity (i.e. diversity between ecosystem)- These are large diversity of different ecosystems which has their own distinctive species.The ecosystem varies with each other as per their habitats and the difference in their species. This type of diversity also includes forest, grasslands, deserts and mountains
- Cause of Loss of Biodiversity
The main cause of loss of Biodiversity is the influence of human beings on the world’s ecosystem.
The threats to Biodiversity are –
- Alteration and loss of the habitat.
- Introduction of exotic species and genetically modified organisms.
- Climate change.
- Overexploitation of resources.
- Biodiversity and Methods of Biodiversity Conservation
Biodiversity conservation is the protection and management of Biodiversity to obtain resources of sustainable development.
Biodiversity conversation has three main objectives.:–
- To preserve the diversity of species.
- Sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems.
- To maintain life-supporting systems and essential ecological processes.
- Biodiversity can be conserved in the following ways:
- In situ conservation. It is the conservation of species within their natural habitat. In this method, the natural ecosystem is maintained and protected.
In situ strategy of conservation of Biodiversity includes protected area network in the form of sacred forests and lakes, biosphere reserves, National parks, wildlife sanctuaries etc.
- Ex situ conservation. It involves the breeding and maintenance of endangered species in the artificial ecosystem.
Ex-situ strategy includes sacred plants and gardens, seed banks, gene banks, cryopreservation, biological gardens, botanical gardens, tree gardens, water system, zoos etc.
Our Solutions are available in Nature. We need to understand the importance of working together at all levels for sustainable development of environment. Biological diversity resources are the pillars upon which human civilization is built. For instance, fishes provide 20% of animal protein to about 3 billion people.
Over 80% of the human diet is provided by plants. About 80% of people living in rural areas in developing countries rely on traditional plants based medicine for basic health care.
Loss of Biodiversity causes threat to human health. It is proven by studies that Biodiversity loss can expand “Zoonoses “ i.e. diseases transmitted from animals to humans, while on the other hand if we keep our Biodiversity intact, we can fight against various pandemics like those caused by Coronavirus.
Thus, the best way to preserve Biodiversity is to follow the model of sustainable development. Sustainable development will help in maintaining ecological balance and this will in turn help in the preservation of biodiversity.
Mahatma Gandhi has rightly said that “Nature provides adequate bounty to a needy man, but not for a greedy man.” we have been very unkind to the environment which has resulted into the ecological imbalance. Hence, there is the urgent requirement to safeguard the environment by focusing on preserving our “Bio-Diversity”.
By,
PRIYANKA SINGH
LLM(National Law University, Odisha)
