UNEP World Environment Day June 5th 2011
As I sit looking out on the cold and rainy Otways Forest in southern Australia today, I’m thinking about World Environment Day (WED), a UN initiative that started in 1972. WED is the one of the main vehicles for the United Nations to stimulate worldwide awareness of the environment through political attention and action. This year’s focus is “Forests – Nature at your service”. Forests are called the ‘lungs of the earth’ because deforestation accounts for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which forests would absorb if carefully managed.
Our Otways Forest have been preserved in recent years through passionate conservation and political action. They are now home to lots of local wildlife like the koalas I see daily.
Though the snow leopards I also care about live in high mountains above forests, like all humans and wildlife, the cats need these ecosystems to thrive in the balance of nature that supports animals and plants in snow leopard habitat. Please give a thought to forests in your part of the world today.
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