By Elena Zevallos:
First established by the United Nations in 1974, World Environment Day is held annually on June 5th as a date designed to inspire environmental action. Similar to Earth Day, World Environment Day is less of a celebration and more of a call to action.
It inspires governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals to make a conscious and positive impact on the planet in the hopes that a collective improvement will occur. And slowly, but surely, it has.
These days, we’ve become more aware than ever before of our human footprint and its damaging impact on the biosphere. With other important dates like World Oceans Day, National Cleanup Day, and Plastic-free July, greater information accessible through social media and viral articles is propping up such issues to the surface of our awareness, from which our society is finally beginning to take these issues seriously. And, with World Environment Day’s 2020 theme revolving around “biodiversity”, the intention behind it is for people to simply make time for nature. Which coincides perfectly with what most of us truly need right now.
Biodiversity is essential to our very existence. It is the basis that supports all living things on our planet, and a necessity for every species to continue living through a healthy and balanced relationship. But clearly, our world’s biodiversity is impaired and the balance of nature is not stable. But we can re-learn what it means to allow our modern lives to co-exist with the flow of the natural world.
The recent coronavirus has kept most of us indoors for long periods of time. And during this time, the environment has been showing us how it can heal from our civilization’s extensive daily impact quite quickly. It has also helped us realize just how precious being outdoors is and how spending time in nature is not just a reinforced suggestion, but a necessity as well. Studies show that a child’s outdoor communion with nature is essential for a healthy mental and psychological state. And that also applies to us as adults. On top of that, it can even be a natural motivator for us to live a life in tandem with nature! This means each action we take in our daily lives can be considerate of how it affects our environment.
So, can we learn to reconnect, rewire, and ultimately rejuvenate through our ability to tap into the earth, and make it a priority? What kind of environmental action can we make this month that’ll help boost the health of our planet’s biodiversity?