Nurture the nature for sustainable development

Nature is referenced through the filter of ‘environment’, a term derived from the French ‘environs’, i.e. something which surrounds us but in which we are not necessarily embedded. In the last thirty years the idea of sustainable development has come to be widely advocated as the best hope for alleviating the global environmental condition, a condition marked by the degradation and thinning of ecosystems, huge biodiversity loss, the ubiquitous spread of toxicity, the desertification of land and deadening of oceans, a worsening epidemiological environment for both humans and other-than-humans, depletion of groundwater, and the spoliation of land not least through the outward march of land-devouring urbanization. The foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature. World Environment Day is one of the biggest days of recognition for encouraging people worldwide to save and protect our environment from different environmental challenges the world is facing today. It is the biggest annual event in the world run by the United Nations to mark the environmental awareness among the people. The World Environment day is also called “People’s Day” which is a day to do something to take care of our environment. It is an important platform for promoting the dimensions of environmental Sustainable Development Goals. Its main aim is to raise awareness to protect our nature and look at various environmental issues that are growing day by day. It is one of the main prime action to protect our environment.

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 on the Human Environment(link is external), or the Stockholm Conference. Later that year, on 15 December, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (A/RES/2994 (XXVII)  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, with a view to deepening environmental awareness.” And for the first time the WED was celebrated on 5th June in 1974.  It is celebrated every year and its celebration is based exclusively on its annual theme announced by the United Nations. Since 2015, the themes of WED have been more pragmatic and more focussed. The theme of the 2015 World Environment Day was “Seven Billion Dreams, One Planet, Consume with Care”. The 2016 WED was organized under the theme “Go wild for life”. The theme for 2017 was ‘Connecting People to Nature – in the city and on the land, from the poles to the equator’. The theme for 2018 was “Beat Plastic Pollution” and the theme for 2019 was “Beat Air pollution”.  Continuing the trend, the World Environment Day 2020 will focus on Biodiversity and will be hosted in Colombia in partnership with Germany. Colombia is one of the largest “Mega-diverse” nations in the world to hold 10% of the planet’s biodiversity.  This year the theme of World Environment Day 2020 is “Time for Nature” with major focus on Biodiversity

   

Making the announcement on the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, Ricardo Lozano, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Jochen Flasbarth, Germany’s State Secretary for Environment, and Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, stressed that with one million plant and animal species facing extinction, there has never been a more important time to focus on the issue of biodiversity. The year 2020 is a critical year for nations’ commitments to preserving and restoring biodiversity. 2020 is a year for urgency, ambition and action to address the crisis facing nature; it is also an opportunity to more fully incorporate nature-based solutions into global climate action.

Coming to the broader aims, the concept of sustainable development arises from a worldview which sees the survival, progress, and continued maintenance of the human community as dependent on the continued health and viability of the earth’s life support systems. Sustainable development implies processes of fundamental change in our social system and institutions. The Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development, designed to provide the roadmap for the post-2015 ESD agenda and launched at the conference, rehearses the core learning content, approaches and competencies of ESD:

• It involves developing in the learner the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes enabling informed decision making and responsible action for environmental integrity, economic viability and the just society in the present and with an eye to the future;

• It entails the use of participatory learning and teaching methods that motivate and empower learners;

• It is fundamentally a rights-based approach;

• It relates to the environmental, social and economic pillars of sustainable development in an integrated, balanced and holistic way, comprehensively embracing, inter alia, poverty reduction, climate change. The most recent frame-setting international articulation of sustainable development came in September 2015 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted a fifteen-year plan; Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Described as ‘a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity’ the Agenda lays out 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals while enumerating 169 action targets for the collective realization of those goals. Within the Agenda the natural environment is far from overlooked but is reduced in two very specific and significant ways. First, only two out of the 17 goals relate directly to the natural condition, i.e. Goal 14 ‘Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development’ and Goal 15 ‘Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss’. Second, as evident in the two goals just referred to, nature is comprehensively looked at through management and resource lenses.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provide that by 2030, countries should ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality

The awareness of unsustainability has earlier been articulated from the perspectives of population growth outstripping resources, or ecological crisis that is caused by the destruction of the life support systems. In the years leading up to the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), contributions to the understanding of sustainability focused on the concept of carrying capacity, planning and intervention in unsustainable practices, as well as the need for improvement in resource efficiency.

The argument is that there should be a paradigm shift from over-reliance on natural resources to curb environmental degradation and resource depletion. This may be achieved through such ways as scientific innovation and creativity, amongst other means of supporting community livelihood, which should be encouraged. Easing the pressure on the environment through diversification of livelihood means is essential to facilitate protection, conservation and replenishment of the environment and the resources therein.

Notably, the relationship between development and environment gave birth to the sustainable development concept, whose central idea is that global ecosystems and humanity itself can be threatened by neglecting the environment. Scholars have observed that since environmental economists are concerned that the long-term neglect of the environmental assets is likely to jeopardize the durability of economic growth, and sustainable development therefore “involves maximizing the net benefits of economic development, subject to maintaining the services and quality of natural resources over time”.

At the 2014 conference in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, wrapping up the 2011-20 UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), education for sustainable development (ESD) was declared to be an ‘enabler for sustainable development’ with the potential to ’empower learners to transform themselves and the society they live in’ (UNESCO, 2014).  Striving for maximum awareness and peoples participation, the 2021-2030 decade would be celebrated as UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, intended to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity. The situation of our environment is declining day by day due to various pollution types and global warming. To safeguard the environment for a better future, we should promote environmentally friendly development in our country.

Let’s care for future generations! Let’s plant a tree! Let’s join hands to save our nature, our environment and celebrate our biodiversity!  It’s time to wake up, to take notice, to raise our voices. It’s time to build back better for People and Planet. This World Environment Day, it’s Time for Nature.

Author works as Science Teacher in J&K School Education Department.

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