World Environment Day

United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, by name Stockholm Conference, the first United Nations (UN) conference that focused on international environmental issues.
The conference, held in Stockholm, Sweden, from June 5 to 16, 1972, reflected a growing interest in conservation issues worldwide and laid the foundation for global environmental governance.
The Stockholm Conference also led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in December 1972 to coordinate global efforts to promote sustainability and safeguard the natural environment.

World Environment Day has been celebrated since 1974 on June 5, to mark the Stockholm Conference, held from June 5-16.
World Environment Day has helped the UNEP to raise awareness and generate political momentum around growing concerns, such as the depletion of the ozone layer, toxic chemicals, desertification and global warming.
Every World Environment Day is hosted by a different country in which official celebrations take place.

World Environment Day is being celebrated all over the world on June 5th 2021 with the theme ‘Ecosystem Restoration’.
This will also mark the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a global mission to revive billions of hectares, from forests to farmlands, from the top of mountains to the depth of the sea.
This year’s host of World Environment Day is Pakistan.

An ecosystem is a community of living and nonliving things that work together. Ecosystems have no particular size.
An ecosystem can be as large as a desert or a lake or as small as a tree or a puddle. It is the fundamental unit of the environment.
Ecosystem restoration means assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, as well as conserving the ecosystems that are still intact.
Restoration can happen in many ways – for example through actively planting or by removing pressures so that nature can recover on its own.
It is not always possible – or desirable – to return an ecosystem to its original state. We still need farmland and infrastructure on land that was once forest, for instance, and ecosystems, like societies, need to adapt to a changing climate.

Between now and 2030, the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could generate US$9 trillion in ecosystem services.
Restoration could also remove 13 to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The economic benefits of such interventions exceed nine times the cost of investment, whereas inaction is at least three times more costly than ecosystem restoration.
Restoring ecosystems large and small protects and improves the livelihoods of people who depend on them. It also helps to regulate disease and reduce the risk of natural disasters. In fact, restoration can help us achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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