World Environment Day -- 5 June 2021
World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 to raise awareness and generate action on a pressing environmental issue. The Day offers an opportunity to reflect on accomplishments and renew our resolve in overcoming the environmental challenges facing the world today.
Held annually since 1974, World Environment Day is a vital platform for promoting progress on the environmental dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals. Governments, major corporations, non-governmental organizations, local communities, celebrities and citizens around the world adopt the World Environment Day brand and participate in celebrations every year in support of the environment.
UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration Launch
World Environment Day marks the official start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Ecosystem services are indispensable to the wellbeing of all the world’s people. Yet, as we celebrate World Environment Day 2021, and the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, ecosystems continue to erode. Ecosystem degradation already affects the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, and costs more than 10 per cent of the annual global gross product in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems and restore them to achieve global goals.
The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future. That will include building political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.
Join a worldwide celebration to reimagine, recreate and restore our relationship with nature. Tune in to the broadcast, to kickstart these next ten, critical years together with inspiring messages from world leaders, activists, celebrities, musical performances and premieres.
Featured participants include:
- A message by His Holiness Pope Francis, welcoming the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
- Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan
- Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
- António Guterres, UN Secretary-General
- Elizabeth Maruma Mrema
- UNEP Global Goodwill Ambassador Gisele Bündchen
- UN Messenger of Peace, Dr. Jane Goodall
- World premiere of a new love song for Mother Earth by DJ Don Diablo feat. Ty Dolla $ign
Click here to learn more about the launch and watch the broadcast
The Road from Sharm El-Sheikh to Kunming – Restoration in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
An event is being held to build high-level political momentum and raise ambition for ecosystem restoration in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
The event will highlight the importance of initiatives such as the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative (FERI), which aims to support developing countries’ capacity for planning and implementing ecosystem restoration as part of their national biodiversity strategies and action plans. FERI has been extended with a renewed agreement between the Korea Forest Service and the CBD Secretariat for 2021 to 2025.
Speakers
- H.E. Ms. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment of Egypt, President of CBD COP 14
- H.E. Mr. Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, Host Government of CBD COP 15
- Ms. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity
- H.E. Mr. Choi Byeong-Am, Minister of the Korea Forest Service
Click here for more information
Generation Restoration
A new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), has been launched as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 gets underway. The report, Becoming #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem Restoration for People, Nature and Climate, highlights that humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably.
“This report presents the case for why we must all throw our weight behind a global restoration effort. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, it sets out the crucial role played by ecosystems, from forests and farmland to rivers and oceans, and it charts the losses that result from a poor stewardship of the planet,” UNEP Executive Director, Inger Andersen, and FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, wrote in the report’s foreword.
Click here to read the full report
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Ecosystem restoration, when implemented effectively and with the support of local populations, works. Research shows that for every dollar spent on restoration, between $3 and $75 of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected. With the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration laying the foundation, this must be the decade of action and transformation. -- Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity |
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