MONROVIA – On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 Liberia joined the rest of the World to celebrate the International Day of Biological Diversity or World Biodiversity Day.
The International Day of World Biodiversity is a United Nations sanctioned international day for the promotion of biodiversity issues. It is currently held on May 22.
This year, the International Day of Biological Diversity was held worldwide under the theme “Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health.”
Locally, it was celebrated under the theme “Our Biodiversity, Our Future”.
Speaking at the celebration at the SKD Sport Stadium in Paynesville, outside Monrovia, Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) Executive Director, Dr. Nathaniel T. Blama, Sr. warned against the killing of protected animal species and unsustainable harvesting of the country’s natural resources.
Dr. Blama said just as humans have rights to live so is animals, which according to him depend on each other for survival.
He discouraged people from catching and rising animals because according to him they belong in the wide.
“They are not pets,” Blama referring to people rising money and other animals said.
He also spoke against the uncontrollable and unsustainable harvesting of our forest and disclosed that our medicine comes from Biodiversity.
The EPA Boss disclosed that there are massive clearing of trees in northern Liberia and said it has resulted to storm in Lofa and Nimba counties.
He stressed the need to engage in trees planting as a means of restoring the damage caused by the repeated cutting of trees in the areas.
Dr. Blama blamed the increased impact of climate change in Liberia to the impact we caused on our biodiversity, which according to him is intended to serve as a natural ecological chain to balance the ecosystem.
“We are undermining the natural environment so as a result of that climate change is impacting us thereby creating change in the climatic condition of our lives,” he said.
Dr. Blama called on Liberians to be caution about the importance of protecting the environment in term of conserving biodiversity.
Also speaking, the Country Director for Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, Dr. Annika Hillers the day was not only a “celebration of all the amazing species of plants and animals that make the world so unique and that bring so much beauty to this world wherever we go, from deep down in the sea, to the forests to the mountains, the deserts and high up to the sky”.
Dr. Hillers said unfortunate, today we are facing a serious crisis of our biodiversity- a crisis caused by human activities, by what we are doing to our nature by how we are tomorrow and about the future generations to come.
Quoting a report, she said an estimated 1 million of our species are threatened with extinction, which according to her mean if actions are not taking to protect species they will disappear from the world forever.
Speaking further Dr. Hillers disclosed that currently, 40 percent of our amphibians, which are for example frogs and toads are threatened with extinction.
“Imagine, almost every second type of frog could disappear from this planet within the next 10 years-every 7th bird species could disappear forever-if we do not change our behaviour,” she added.
United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres in a statement read by a student during the ceremony said “from individual species through entire ecosystems, biological diversity is vital for human health and well-being.
According to SG Guterres the quality of the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe all depend on keeping the natural world in good health.
“We need healthy ecosystems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to address climate change: they can provide 37 per cent of the mitigation needed to limit global temperature rise,” he said in the statement.
Guterres also noted that yet the world’s ecosystems face unprecedented threats.
“An alarming and authoritative new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reveals that nature is declining at rates never seen before in all of human history.”
He disclosed that since 1990, Earth has lost 28.7 million hectares of forests that help to absorb harmful carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere and indicated that one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction and more than 90 per cent of marine fish stocks are in decline or overfished.
“The impacts on people around the world will be grave. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the targets for the Sustainable Development Goals. We simply cannot allow this to happen,” the UN Secretary General added
He further noted that this year’s International Day highlights the impact of environmental neglect on food security and public health.