World Environment Day

The biggest, most celebrated day for positive environmental action

World Environment Day is celebrated every year on 5 June to focus the world’s attention on a pressing environmental issue. The Day strives to raise awareness and encourage action for the environment. It 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.

Countries all over the world including the State of Kuwait participate each year in national and international celebrations to champion environmental causes—governments, major corporations, non-governmental organization, local communities, celebrities and citizens across the world. This year the focus is in support of biodiversity #ForNature.

Biodiversity is the foundation that supports all life on land and below water (SDGs)

Biodiversity—the variety of life forms in any given habitat, from large animals to plants to fungi to the smallest of organisms—is threatened like never before. As stressed by UNEP, we are at a verge of a mass extinction: within the next 10 years, around 1 million species may be wiped out of the surface of the planet. That’s one out of every four known species. Wildlife has declined on average by over 60 per cent in last 50 years. At this rate, species are disappearing tens to hundreds of times faster than the average speed of the past 10 million years. The biosphere, which is the collection of all life on Earth, is being altered at an unprecedented scale. We have significantly changed 75% of the land surface. Two thirds of the ocean area are impacted by human activity. Just 15% of wetlands still exists today. Between 2010 and 2015 alone, 32 million hectares of forest have disappeared. To date, we have lost one third of all forest area compared to pre-industrial levels, and live coral cover on reefs has nearly halved in the past 150 years. If we continue on this path unabated, the loss in biodiversity will have severe implications for humanity, from the collapse of food and health systems to the disruption of entire supply chains. Our unsustainable use of nature is largely to blame for this dramatic situation.

On this World Environment Day, the United Nations in Kuwait and respected partners supports global campaign on nature. The campaign highlights how we as humans are inextricably linked to and depend on nature for our existence and quality of life. UNEP is calling on governments, businesses and civil society to join hands in building global understanding of biodiversity and nature’s key contribution to our survival. Nature shapes human cultures, inspiration and learning, physical and psychological experiences, and identities.

The campaign was launched last week in the State of Kuwait to draw attention to the need for restoring nature and reversing biodiversity loss. It is featuring a distinct visual identity and is still running using the hashtag #ForNature. The key objective of the campaign is be to build understanding on how all living things in Kuwait are connected in the web of life. The campaign includes many assets, including interactive visual stories on Instalive and other platforms to showcase the interdependence of all life on Earth, tied together through biodiversity chains. We have seen great interest from Kuwait public; families, friends, peers, neighbourhoods, government and non-governmental organizations, and small and large businesses— who are showing their commitment to protecting nature and to the sustainable use of nature’s resources. We are calling on partners and individuals to share this powerful visual advocacy message with the wider community. Our goal is to underscore our resolve #ForNature and to amplify the plea of the 1 million species facing extinction by 2030.

The first Waste Management Outlook for the West Asia region, was launched on June 1st 2020, shows that key targets and waste-related 2030 Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved by most West Asian countries by developing sound governance, planning and implementation measures, as well as by securing the necessary resources to ensure their achievement. As per UNEP, while the COVID-19 pandemic worsens the already growing waste management challenges in various countries in West Asia, the waste management outlook will help the countries in reviewing their current waste management systems and developing resilient and sustainable waste management initiatives, which have a critical role to play in post COVID-19  West Asia.

Focusing on waste management systems, finance and governance, the Regional Outlook articulates a means of future progress toward sustainable waste management to enable a transition from a region historically dependent on the low cost of dumping waste to one utilizing waste as a resource. To visualize this process, the Regional Outlook highlights the potential of the circular economy, in which waste serves as a resource and as a driver of regional economic growth through multistakeholder involvement, creating a range of funding and investment opportunities.

#ForNature human chains are a way to demonstrate our resolve to protect diversity of life on Earth and demand from world leaders’ bold decisions and concrete actions as part of the UN75 dialogue.