The critical importance of nature for our wellbeing is being highlighted throughout this week, with daily sub-themes, in advance of Friday’s International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) and its overall theme of “Our solutions are in nature.”
As the global community re-examines, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, its relationship with the natural world, one thing is certain: despite our technological advances, humans are completely dependent on healthy and vibrant ecosystems for our health, water, food, medicines, clothes, fuel, shelter and energy, to name a few.
This year’s IDB theme, “Our solutions are in nature”, emphasises the importance of working together at all levels to build a future of life in harmony with nature. 2020 is a year of reflection, opportunity and solutions. All of us have the opportunity to reflect on how we can “Build back better” to increase the resilience of nations and communities as we recover from this pandemic.
2020 is also the year when the world can signal a strong will for adapting as well as adopting, in 2021, a robust and ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework that will “bend the curve” on biodiversity loss for the benefit of all life on Earth.
“Biodiversity loss is a direct result of our short-sighted human activities including uncontrolled mining and infrastructure development, unsustainable farming and deforestation,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, CBD Acting Executive Secretary. “All these have degraded ecosystems and have created the conditions that lead to events like possibly the pandemic.”
“While the world is striving to end this pandemic, we all need to take urgent concerted and collaborative actions to build a resilient and sustainable global economy that incorporates nature at its heart, even as we build back from the crisis.”
