The whole world commemorated Environment Day on June 5 focusing on ecosystem restoration, bannering the theme “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.”
The United Nations has declared every 5th of June as World Environment Day to highlight the importance of protecting our environment. The Philippines is also celebrating Environment Month this June adopting ecological restoration as the main theme. The province of Negros Occidental is similarly adopting the national theme on the commemoration of its Environment Week this coming 4th week of the month.
This year’s Environment Day highlighted the urgency of restoring the already damaged ecosystems of the world, from terrestrial to marine ecosystems. In its briefer, the UN Secretariat for Environment Day claimed that “every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch and over the last century we have destroyed half of our wetlands.” It added that 50 percent of our coral reefs have already been lost, and it warned of the further loss of about 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs by 2050 regardless of the possible reduction of global warming to an increase of 1.5 percent.
The UN further said, “The emergence of COVID-19 has also shown just how disastrous the consequences of ecosystem loss can be. By shrinking the area of natural habitats for animals, we have created ideal conditions for pathogens – including coronaviruses – to spread.”
The UN defines ecosystem restoration as preventing, halting, and reversing the ecosystem damages – to go from exploiting nature to healing it. During this year’s Environment Day the UN launched the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration ” (2021 – 2030), which is a global mission to revive billions of hectares, from forests to farmlands, from the top of mountains to the depth of the sea.
Ecosystem restoration is vital for the Philippines. We have limited natural forest cover left, estimated at less than a million hectares out of the country’s total land area. Most of our mangrove forests have been converted into fishponds and reclaimed and converted for other purposes. All forms of pollution are present in many areas in the country, especially in Metro Manila and other major urban centers. The solid waste problem is no longer isolated in urban places, but it is already felt in rural areas with the use of plastic and other non-biodegradable materials in most commercial products.
We need not to be an expert to know what are the services and benefits we derive from our forest ecosystem, not only timber and fuel wood, but more so on the clean water and air it provides, its capacity to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards and risks, as well as cultural and aesthetic values that could hardly be accounted. The ecosystems in our coastal and marine areas, specifically mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs, are vital in food sufficiency and production, aside from numerous ecosystem services they offer, but unfortunately, they have been severely damaged.
The natural mechanisms of nature to heal and regenerate have been tremendously hampered because of over exploitation of our natural resources and environment. These ecosystems could no longer withstand the rate of our abuse and use, and, therefore, we are facing more deadly natural risks and hazards, and now with COVID-19, health crisis, too.
The call of the UN for ecosystem restoration has long been overdue, but probably it is not too late when all the citizens and nations of the world would only cooperate and to do their shares in protecting nature. However, in our attempt to take part in the restoration efforts some misplaced initiatives also arise.
For instance, instead of using native and indigenous species for reforestation we have witnessed the planting of exotic species, which is not only appropriate but may also cause other ecological concerns, such as the proliferation of invasive species that may further result to biological pollution. There were also cases where the seagrass has been converted into mangrove reforestation. It should be noted that the seagrass is a natural ecosystem by itself and it serves as habitat to assorted species of marine organisms.
As we commemorate here in the Philippines the Environment Month this June, let us find ways and means, even in our little ways, to help restore our ecosystems, from simply conserving the use of water and electricity, proper disposal of garbage to minimizing our carbon footprints, among others.*