“World Environment Day” is celebrated on 5th June every year and is a major event launched by United Nations for encouraging awareness and action for the protection of the environment.
This year, the theme is biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events, of bushfires in Brazil, United States and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, COVID-19 a global pandemic, all demonstrate the interdependence of humans and surrounding web of life.
Biodiversity is the foundation that supports all life forms on land and water. It affects every aspect of human health, providing clean air and water, nutritious food, scientific understanding & medicine sources, natural disease resistance and climate change mitigation. Changing or removing one element of this web affects the entire life system and can produce negative consequences.
Biodiversity involves 8 million plant and animal species, the ecosystems that house them and the genetic diversity among them. In the last 150 years, the live coral reef cover has been reduced by half. Within the next 10 years, one out of every four known species may become extinct.
Human actions, including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture and acceleration of climate change, have pushed nature beyond its limit. It would take 1.6 Earths to meet the demands that humans make of nature each year. If we continue on this path, biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity, including the collapse of food and health systems.
The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life. Today, it is estimated that, globally, about one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from diseases caused by coronaviruses; and about 75% of diseases are transmitted to people by animals.
There is urgent need to protect our biodiversity for our own survival!
“Eco-cops”, the Environmental Club of Uttaranchal University organized an ‘Online Collage Making Competition’ on the occasion of “Word Environment Day” on 5th June 2020.
Students in spite of ongoing Sessional Examinations participated in the event. They made highly informative collages on ‘Biodiversity and its conservation’.
The event was judged by Dr. Ajay Singh, President – Eco- cops.
The winners of the event were:
1st Prize : Sneha Mohanta [B.Sc. (Hons.) Microbiology, II Semester]
2nd Prize : Mansi Rawat [B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry, II Semester]
3rd Prize : Monika Mishra [B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry, II Semester]
The event was organized by Dr. Bharti Ramola, Coordinator – Eco- cops. Mr. Shivam Pandey and Dr. Poonam Negi contributed in making the event a great success.
