Dr Anjani Ganase joins the dots from lockdown in pandemic to climate change and how our lives are changed. The key is to see ourselves as active participants, responsible for the health of the earth in whichever corner we find ourselves.
On June 5 we celebrated World Environment Day with the international theme of Re-imagine. Recreate. Restore; a call to action to regenerate and restore our natural ecosystems in the world that has been ravaged by human exploitations.
This week, World Oceans Day, on June 8, was observed with the theme of The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods highlighting interconnectivity with the ocean and its resources. This is especially pertinent to island nations that depend on ocean resources yet lack understanding of the marine ecosystems and how they function. In 2021, both days occur in the first year of the UN Decade of Ocean Science and Sustainable Development, a decade that pushes efforts to reverse the damage to ocean health inflicted over the last 100 years.
Some may wonder why we even bother to consider the environment given that we are all reeling from the devastations of covid19. Who cares about climate change and the ocean when we can't even eat? But there are many in the position to care and should care, to avoid future tragedies of this nature. Our normal behaviours are the reasons we are in this position and it's not just the pandemic.
Here are some facts that should make us think about our future and 'normal.' The World Economic Forum has listed the top five global risks to humankind in the next ten years. All are related to the environment: extreme weather; climate action failure; significant global biodiversity loss; natural disasters; and human-made natural disasters. Many of these have significant consequential impacts on other major threats including water and food crises, involuntary migration (refugees) and global governance failure.
Biodiversity loss because of human activities is ten to a 100-times higher and is resulting in a faster rate of extinction, when compared to the last ten million years. All 7.9 billion people on the planet make up 0.01 per cent of all living creatures on the planet, yet we've wiped out 83 per cent of wild mammals, 50 per cent of plants and 40 per cent insects.
The main drivers of biodiversity loss are habitat loss and alteration: 85 per cent of wetlands converted, 75 per cent of land surface altered, and 66 per cent of ocean impacted. The other major drivers include exploitation of wildlife (animals and plants), pollution of habitats with our waste and species invasion because of trade and global commerce. All of this exacerbates ecosystem health that is already under pressure to adapt to shifting climatic conditions. The consequences of biodiversity loss are dire for us, as nature is our source of food, water and medicine. It is our stock for all research, innovation, and human health care.
Around the world climate action continues to be slow as it competes with improv
