Celebrating biodiversity on World Environment Day

The foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature. Yet, some of us, especially the ones living in the tropics, blessed with so many natural resources, take nature for granted. But this is the time to wake up and take […]

The foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature.

Yet, some of us, especially the ones living in the tropics, blessed with so many natural resources, take nature for granted.

But this is the time to wake up and take inventory of our natural environment – the biodiversity.  It is time to realise that we cannot build ourselves without building our planet. It is the peoples’ day; it is the World Environment Day!

We should care about biodiversity because it positively impacts human health in many ways. It is the variation of earth’s terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species, as well as their habitats.

We should celebrate it because it is vital to the survival of all life on earth and is also the cornerstone for the goods and services of the environment that allow human societies to thrive. It provides us with food, water and resources as well as services such as climate control, pollination, flood mitigation and cycling of nutrients.

Sadly, according to a 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction as the result of human activity.

 

Greg Odogwu