The World Environment Day (WED) celebration is the United Nations’ flagship programme for promoting worldwide awareness and action for the environment. The Day is celebrated every year on June 5 and this year Pakistan will be the host country for the WED celebration. The theme for 2021 is ‘Ecosystem Restoration’ and the focus is on resetting our relation with nature. It will also mark the formal launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.
Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations together with the support of partners, it is dedicated to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide, and combate global warming, climate change as well as weather-relate aberrations.
For too long, we have been exploiting and destroying our planet’s ecosystems. Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch. As much as 50 per cent of our coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90 per cent of coral reefs could be lost by 2050, even if global warming is limited to an increase of 1.5°C. Ecosystem loss is depriving the world of carbon sinks, like forests and peat lands, at a time humanity can least afford it. Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown exponentially and the planet is on catastrophic climate change.
The emergence of Covid-19 has also shown just how disastrous the consequences of ecosystem loss can be. By shrinking the area of natural habitat for animals, we have created ideal conditions for pathogens including corona viruses to spread to human beings as their host.
With this big and challenging picture, the World Environment Day celebration in 2021is focusing on the ecosystem restoration with the slogan “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.” Ecosystem restoration means preventing, halting and reversing the damage already done to nature and to heal it. It means bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction, from the peaks of mountains to the depths of the sea.
Odisha is one of the most privileged States in the country with varied topography, geography and ecosystems of hills, plain forest and farm-lands, terrestrial forests and coastal mangroves, sea coast of 420 km long, major and minor rivers, wetlands enriched with varied biodiversity from wild to cultivated and domesticated.
The State is also rich with about one-fifth of the minerals and metals of the country such as bauxite, iron, coal, chrome, manganese, limestone, rare earths, etc. The forest and farmland based economy is now in transition to minerals and metals based economy. Forests and farmlands are sacrificed for mines and minerals processing industries, urban expansion and infrastructure development.The industrial belts have become the sites of heat islands and environmental pollution, the rivers flow polluted waters, the ground water table goes down and becomes saline, the farm lands lose productivity.
The State is prone to frequent natural disasters like cyclones, floods and droughts. Lakhs of skilled and unskilled labourers and farm workers are migrating to other States in search of jobs. The Covid-19 pandemic has added fuel to the problem manifold.
The recent cyclone ‘Yass’ in last week of May 2021 has devastated the State ’s second Ramsar wetland site Bhitarkanika and the only biosphere reserve Similipal forest. Similipal also sustained heavy casualty due to wild forest fire a couple of months back. Asia’s biggest wetland and Odisha’s first Ramsar wetland site was also devastated earlier due to coastal cyclones.
Big cats, antelopes and deers, reptiles, birds, and myriad other wild animals moving in the wild freely in the past are now mostly restricted to nineteen protected sanctuaries and national parks. Losing their natural habitats and food plants the elephants have become stray animals entering into human habitations.
Only with healthy ecosystems we can stop the collapse of biodiversity, counteract climate change, and enhance people’s livelihoods. Ecosystems are defined as the interaction between living organisms i.e plants, animals, people, microorganisms and the non-living components such a soil, water, air, climate, etc. In an eco-system all the organisms equally share the same environment and habitat which is common. This includes natural and man-made macro- and micro- ecosystems such as parks, recreation gardens, cities or farms.
Ecosystem restoration includes activities such as protection of degraded lands and wastelands, growing trees inland and on the coast, greening our cities, allowing our gardens again to grow wild.
Restoration of ecosystems will also help in arresting the migration of local communities who earn their livelihood from forest and farm income. Local action of eco-restoration will have global implication so far as food security, reduction of global warming, climate change and weather-related natural disasters are concerned. The centre stage of development is played by energy supply and being a coal rich State. The prime source of energy in Odisha is thermal power plants. The highly polluting thermal plants must be replaced with non-polluting solar, wind and bio-energy plants.
All the polluted mineral and metal based mines and industries adopting older technologies must be replaced with non-polluting technology based ones. It is time for deindustrialization as long as those are polluting and reforestation and rehabilitation of our degraded natural ecosystems in order to achieve the goal of sustainable development for the present and posterity.
(Dr Patro is president, Orissa Environmental Society. snpatro11@gmil.com; Ph: 9437190420)
