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Destruction of nature is as big a threat to humanity as climate change.

By Michael Le Page

Farming and housing occupies large amounts of land globally

Steve Proehl/Getty

We are destroying nature at an unprecedented rate, threatening the survival of a million species – and our own future, too. But it’s not too late to save them and us, says a major new report.

“The evidence is incontestable. Our destruction of biodiversity and ecosystem services has reached levels that threaten our well-being at least as much as human-induced climate change.”

With these words chair Robert Watson launched a meeting in Paris to agree the final text of a major UN report on the state of nature around the world – the biggest and most thorough assessment to date, put together by 150 scientists from 50 countries.

The report, released today, is mostly grim reading. We humans have already significantly altered three-quarters of all land and two-thirds of the oceans. More than a third of land and three-quarters of freshwater resources are devoted to crops or livestock.

Around 700 vertebrates have gone extinct in the past few centuries. Forty per cent of amphibians and a third of coral species, sharks and marine mammals look set to follow.

Less room for wildlife

Preventing this is vital to save ourselves, the report says. “Ecosystems, species, wild populations, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are shrinking, deteriorating or vanishing,” says one of the the report’s authors, Josef Settele. “This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world.”

The main reason is simple. Our expanding farms and cities are leaving less room for wildlife. The other major causes are the direct exploitation of wildlife such as hunting, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species. Climate change is set to become ever more destructive.

Read more: Is life on Earth really at risk? The truth about the extinction crisis

But we can still turn things around, the report says. “Nature can be conserved, restored and used sustainably while simultaneously meeting other global societal goals through urgent and concerted efforts fostering transformative change,” it states.

It also says that where land is owned or managed by indigenous peoples and local communities, there has been less destruction and sometimes none at all.

The aim of the report, by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), is to provide an authoritative scientific basis for international action . The hope is that it will lead to the same pressure for action as the latest scientific report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on limiting warming to 1.5°C.

“Good knowledge is absolutely essential for good governance,” says Watson, who chaired the IPCC from 1997 to 2002 . “I’m optimistic that this will make a difference.”

Bioenergy threat

But the challenge is immense. All countries except the US have ratified the 1992 UN Convention of Biodiversity and are supposed to be conserving biodiversity and promoting its sustainable use.

Despite this, more than 80 per cent of the agreed international targets for 2020 will not be met, says the report. In fact, as of 2016, half the signatory countries hadn’t yet drawn up plans on how to meet the targets .

The problem isn’t just our focus on economic growth regardless of the impact on the natural world. Current plans for reducing carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero to limit climate change rely heavily on bioenergy, which requires a lot of land. This will accelerate species loss as well as threatening food and water security, says the report.

Read more: Rewilding: Can we really restore ravaged nature to a pristine state?

In fact, the bioenergy push is already causing harm. For instance, rainforests are being cut down in Indonesia and Malaysia to grow palm oil to make biodiesel for cars in Europe .

Transforming our civilisation to make it more sustainable will require more connected thinking, the report says. “There’s a very fragmented approach,” says Watson. “We’ve got to think about all these things in a much more holistic way.”

For instance, there are ways of tackling climate change that will help biodiversity too, such as persuading people to eat less meat and planting more trees. But the devil is in the detail – artificial plantations would benefit wildlife far less than restoring natural forests.

Some of the solutions set out in the report may not be welcome to all. In particular, it effectively calls for wealthy people to consume less, suggesting that changing the habits of the affluent may be central to sustainable development worldwide.

Read more: Half the planet should be set aside for wildlife – to save ourselves

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Humans are causing life on Earth to vanish

Ecosystems, the fabric of life on which we all depend, are declining rapidly because of human actions. But there is still time to save them.

Human pressure on nature has soared since the 1970s. We have been using more and more natural resources, and this has come at a cost.

If we lose large portions of the natural world, human quality of life will be severely reduced and the lives of future generations will be threatened unless effective action is taken.

Over the last 50 years, nature's capacity to support us has plummeted. Air and water quality are reducing, soils are depleting, crops are short of pollinators, and coasts are less protected from storms.

Prof Andy Purvis, a Museum research leader,  has spent three years studying human interactions with nature. Alongside experts from more than 50 different countries, he has produced the most comprehensive review ever of the worldwide state of nature, with a summary published in the journal Science .

It was coordinated by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an independent body that provides policymakers with objective scientific assessments about the state of knowledge regarding the planet’s biodiversity.

The latest report paints a shocking picture. We are changing nature on a global scale and the impacts of our actions are being distributed unequally.

'It was terrifying to see how close we are to playing Russian roulette with the only world we have,' says Andy. 'But it's also been inspiring, because there is a way out of this.

'What has given hope to the many scientists who worked on this report has been the way the public are fully aware of the dangers and want action. We just need to make sure the politicians remember that too.'

A diagram from the report showing the risk of extinction in different groups of species, assuming that species with limited or no data are equally threatened as other species in their taxonomic group.

Nature feeling the squeeze

Since the 1970s, Earth's population has doubled, and consumption has increased by 45% per capita.

The world is increasingly managed in a way that maximises the flow of material from nature, to meet rising human demands for resources like food, energy and timber.

As a result, humans have directly altered at least 70% of Earth's land, mainly for growing plants and keeping animals. These activities necessitate deforestation, the degradation of land, loss of biodiversity and pollution, and they have the biggest impacts on land and freshwater ecosystems.

About 77% of rivers longer than 1,000 kilometres no longer flow freely from source to sea, despite supporting millions of people.

The main cause of ocean change is overfishing, but 66% of the ocean's surface has also been affected by other processes like runoff from agriculture and plastic pollution.

Live coral cover on reefs has nearly halved in the past 150 years and is predicted to disappear completely within the next 80 years. Coral reefs are home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet.  

The number of alien species - species found outside their natural range - has risen, as humans move organisms around the world, which disrupts and often diminishes the richness of local biodiversity. This, combined with human-driven changes in habitat, also threatens many endemic species.

In addition, fewer varieties of plants and animals are being preserved due to standardisations in farming practices, market preferences, large-scale trade and loss of local and indigenous knowledge.

Nature also benefits humans in non-material ways. We learn from it and are inspired by it. It gives us physical and psychological experiences and supports our identity and sense of place. But its capacity to provide these services has also diminished.

What's causing it?

The loss of ecosystems is caused mainly by changes in land and sea use, exploitation, climate change, pollution and the introduction of invasive species.

Some things have a direct impact on nature, like the dumping of waste into the ocean.

Other causes are indirect. Those include demographic, economic, political and institutional arrangements underpinned by social values, and they interact with one another.

For example, vast areas of land managed by Indigenous Peoples are experiencing a decline in ecosystems at a slower rate than everywhere else. But the rights of Indigenous Peoples are being threatened, which could result in faster deterioration of these areas. This would have a detrimental impact on wider ecosystems and societies.

Coral reefs are bleaching at an unprecedented rate

Trading overseas has increased by 900% since the start of the post-industrial era and the extraction of living materials from nature has risen by 200%.

The growing physical distance between supply and demand means people don't see the destruction caused by their consumption.

'Before the Industrial Revolution, people had to look after the environment around them because that's where they got their products from,' says Andy. 'If they didn't look after it, they would face the consequences.

'Now with globalisation, we have massive environmental impacts a long way from where we live. But we are insulated from these impacts, so they are abstract to us.'

Overseas trading also creates and increases inequality. The pressure for material goods comes mostly from middle and high-income countries and is often met by low to middle-income countries.

For example, Japan, US and Europe alone consumed 64% of the world's imports of fish products. High income countries have their own fisheries but most of these have collapsed. Fishing now takes place in previously unexploited or underexploited fisheries, most of which belong to low-income countries.

'With the massive increase in trade, there is no longer that imperative to make sustainable choices,' says Andy. 'We can overexploit natural resources somewhere else in the world and the magnitudes of our choices are invisible to us.'

What does the future hold?

The report analysed in detail how the world will look under three very different scenarios.

• Global sustainability: the whole world shifts towards sustainability by respecting environmental boundaries and making sure economic development includes everyone. Wealth is distributed evenly, resources and energy are used less, and emphasis is on economic growth and human wellbeing.
• Regional competition: there is a rise in nationalism with the focus mostly on domestic issues. There is less investment in education, particularly in the developing world. High-income countries will continue exporting the damage, resulting in some strong and lasting environmental destruction for future generations to deal with.
• Economic optimism: the world puts faith in new and innovative technologies that are still to be invented, which help us cope with environmental problems. Emissions will continue, but with the idea that technology will mitigate them. There will be stronger investment in health and education, and global markets are reasonably integrated with shared goals.

Combating the loss of ecosystems is going to be complex and will require a nexus approach. This means thinking about how different components of the problem such as nature, politics and socioeconomics all interact with one another.

An example of a nexus approach would be to reduce biodiversity loss by changing how we farm, while at the same time making sure people have enough food, their livelihoods are not undermined, and social conflicts are not aggravated.

The way to avoid some of these issues may be to focus on regenerating and restoring high-carbon ecosystems such as forests and wetlands. Similarly the need for food could be met by changing dietary choices and reducing waste.

Switching to clean energy is an important step which would allow other changes to happen more easily. Obtaining coal and gas involves destroying vast amounts of land and seascapes as well as polluting the environment beyond extraction.

But in order to achieve this fully, the world needs to revaluate current political structures and societal norms, which tend not to value nature. One way of doing that is by improving existing environmental policies and regulations, as well as removing and reforming harmful policies.

'I hope people can see that this is not a drill,' says Andy. 'This really is an emergency and I hope they act on it.'

The Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have decided that the IPBES Global Assessment Report will form the scientific and technical evidence base for the intergovernmental negotiations in 2020, to agree on a global biodiversity framework for the next decade and to replace the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that expire next year.

IPBES Chair Anna Maria Hernandez concludes, 'This new article makes it even more clear that we need profound, system-wide change and that this requires urgent action from policymakers, business, communities and every individual.

'Working in tandem with other knowledge systems, such as Indigenous and local knowledge, science has spoken, and nobody can say that they did not know. There is literally no time to waste.'

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Essay on Destruction Of Nature

Students are often asked to write an essay on Destruction Of Nature in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Destruction Of Nature

Understanding nature’s destruction.

Nature’s destruction refers to the harm caused to the environment by human activities. This includes cutting down trees, polluting water, and releasing harmful gases into the air. These actions upset the balance of nature and lead to negative effects such as climate change, extinction of species, and loss of biodiversity.

The Cause: Human Activities

The main cause of nature’s destruction is human activities. People cut down trees for wood and to make space for buildings. Industries release harmful waste into water bodies, killing aquatic life. Cars and factories emit gases that pollute the air and cause global warming.

Effects on Wildlife

Nature’s destruction has a huge impact on wildlife. As trees are cut down, animals lose their homes. Water pollution kills fish and other aquatic creatures. Air pollution affects birds and insects. Many species are now in danger of extinction because of these problems.

Impact on Climate

Another effect of nature’s destruction is climate change. Cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the air. This traps heat in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. This can cause extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels.

Steps to Prevent

There are many steps we can take to prevent nature’s destruction. We can plant more trees, reduce waste, recycle, and use renewable energy sources. We should also educate others about the importance of protecting nature. Let’s all do our part to save our planet.

Also check:

• Speech on Destruction Of Nature

250 Words Essay on Destruction Of Nature

Introduction.

Nature is a beautiful gift given to us by the Earth. It is filled with colorful flowers, tall trees, and animals of all sizes. But, sadly, we are causing harm to nature. This is called the destruction of nature.

Causes of Nature’s Destruction

There are many ways we harm nature. One of the main ways is by cutting down trees, also known as deforestation. We do this to make space for buildings and farms. This not only destroys the homes of many animals but also reduces the amount of clean air we have.

Another way we harm nature is by polluting it. We throw trash in rivers and seas, and release harmful gases into the air. This makes the water and air dirty, hurting plants, animals, and even us.

Effects of Nature’s Destruction

When we destroy nature, we also hurt ourselves. For example, by cutting down trees, we have fewer plants to give us clean air. This can make us sick. Also, when we pollute the water, it becomes unsafe for us to drink.

Moreover, many animals lose their homes when we destroy nature. Some may even become extinct, which means they disappear forever. This is very sad and can also upset the balance of life on Earth.

In conclusion, the destruction of nature is a serious problem. It harms plants, animals, and even us. It is important for us to take care of nature. We can do this by not littering, by recycling, and by planting more trees. By doing these, we can help protect nature for ourselves and for future generations.

500 Words Essay on Destruction Of Nature

Nature is like a beautiful painting filled with vibrant colors and life. It gives us air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and many more things that we need to live. But, sadly, we are causing a lot of damage to nature. This damage is known as the destruction of nature.

There are many reasons why we are destroying nature. One of the biggest reasons is cutting down trees, known as deforestation. We cut down trees to make room for buildings and roads. We also cut them down to use the wood for making furniture and paper. This leads to fewer trees, which means less clean air for us to breathe.

Another reason is pollution. We throw our waste into rivers and seas, which harms the water and the creatures living in it. We also send harmful gases into the air when we drive cars and use machines. These gases can make the air dirty and cause diseases.

The destruction of nature has many harmful effects. When we cut down trees, we lose the animals and plants that lived in those forests. Many of these animals and plants are now in danger of disappearing forever.

When we pollute the water, we harm the fish and other creatures that live in it. This can lead to fewer fish for us to eat. Dirty water can also make us sick if we drink it or use it for cooking.

Polluted air can make us sick too. It can cause problems like coughing, difficulty in breathing, and even serious diseases.

What Can We Do?

Even though the destruction of nature is a big problem, there are things we can do to help. We can plant more trees and take care of the ones we have. We can also reduce, reuse, and recycle our waste instead of throwing it away.

We can use less water and electricity to save our resources. We can walk or ride a bicycle instead of using a car to reduce air pollution.

The destruction of nature is a serious issue that affects us all. We must understand that nature is not just a resource to be used, but a treasure to be protected. By making small changes in our daily lives, we can help to stop the destruction of nature and ensure a healthy planet for future generations.

Remember, it’s not just about us. It’s about every living creature on this planet. Let’s work together to protect our beautiful nature. It’s the only home we have.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Deserted Village
• Essay on Depression Cause And Effect
• Essay on Depression And Anxiety

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'By destroying nature we destroy ourselves'

Loss of nature carries a huge economic cost, but embracing it as a solution pays handsome dividends

The coronavirus might have its origins in the caves of Yunnan province, but make no mistake: nature did not create this crisis, we did. When we encroach on the natural world, we do more than cause environmental damage. The huge economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic is an illustration of a larger truth: we pay dearly when we destroy nature. 

The emergence of COVID-19 might have appeared an act of nature, but it was entirely predictable. David Quammen explained why in his prophetic book,  Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic , published in 2012. “We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”

New diseases, however, are just the beginning. From coastal erosion to the decline of natural resources such as fisheries and forests, the loss of nature carries a huge economic cost. WWF , the international conservation non-governmental organization, estimates that the total figure over the next 30 years could be as much as £8 trillion. 

While some may disagree with the moral imperative to preserve the natural world, and the global commons, there can be no disagreement on the economic imperative of doing so, or the urgency of acting with speed and at scale. The economy, after all, is a wholly owned subsidiary of nature – not the other way around. And we are bankrupting it. 

The more important question, therefore, is what we can do. There are, I think, two answers – and neither will succeed without the other.  

The first is that we need to reset our relationship with nature by valuing it as the indispensable resource that it is. Rather than destroying our natural world, we need to apply “nature-based solutions” to our greatest challenges and create more robust resilience to systemic shocks in the future. Examples include the restoration of forests, wetlands, and peatlands in our countryside to help regulate water supply and protect communities from floods and landslides. 

Other approaches include protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems such as reefs and salt marshes, which guard coasts from storm surges and erosion. For centuries, we have encroached on natural habitats, but through collective action we can help turn back that tide. 

If we are to resolve the climate crisis, reduce inequality, maintain the wealth of nations and feed a growing global population, we must protect, restore, and sustainably manage nature. It is no longer enough for businesses to be “less bad,” or even “not bad.” We need to be good. We need to actively reverse the damage we have done. 

Besides being the right thing to do, this also makes economic and financial sense. The cost of inaction is simply too high. The World Economic Forum’s Nature Risk Rising  report has identified more than half of global GDP as moderately or highly dependent on nature.

Embracing nature as a solution is an investment, not a cost, and it is an investment that pays handsome dividends. Allowing a climate crisis to unfold is a risk that can be described, without overstatement, as existential.

The Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) has shown that a $350 billion annual investment in climate solutions would unlock $4.5 trillion in new business opportunities and save $5.7 trillion of damage to people and the planet by 2030. The World Economic Forum has estimated that the nature-positive economy could create nearly 400 million jobs in the next 10 years. 

Yet, with some exceptions, few countries and companies are integrating nature-based solutions in their strategies. They would be well advised to do so. 

What is missing, then, is my second solution: enough ambitious leaders who are willing to take bold action. Recent data suggests that the likelihood of our overshooting our Paris climate targets within the next five years has doubled.  As the summer fires in Brazil and Siberia remind us, we are running out of time to avert a runaway climate crisis. 

So 2020 must be the year that leaders across the world step up to act with courage and urgency. And without putting nature and nature-based solutions front and center of decision-making, they will not be able to meet the 1.5C climate targets set in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 or prevent a catastrophic loss of biodiversity in the “sixth great extinction."

Businesses have an indispensable role to play. First, they should get their own house in order, individually and collectively, by acting together across their value chains and with each other to become nature-positive and carbon-neutral – giving back to nature and the climate more than they take. Examples of this are underway in the fashion and food industry.

In Malaysia, Nestlé restored more than 2,400 hectares of native forest along the Kinabatangan River by incentivizing local people to plant trees. In Mongolia, the luxury fashion brand Kering reduced grazing pressure on native grasslands and lowered costs by teaching cashmere farmers innovative herding and packing methods.

Such initiatives are welcome, but there are too few of them. We need to expand and accelerate our efforts dramatically. Given the lack of effective governance so evident around the world today, we need more than ever courageous business leaders to speak up and advocate for the right actions and policies, to use their voice and commitment to derisk the needed, more ambitious political action.

I encourage all businesses to sign up to Business for Nature’s global campaign  Nature is Everyone’s Business  to do that and to join a powerful collective business voice calling on governments to reverse nature loss this decade. 

While 2020 will forever be remembered as a year of pandemic, what will follow remains –  for now – within our hands. 

We have seen what happens when we make nature our enemy. If we instead make it our ally, helping us to help ourselves and in doing so create healthy societies, resilient economies and thriving businesses, we will have learnt the greatest lesson from this terrible period. The result will be a world that is not just safer, healthier and more equitable, but one that is prosperous too.

This piece was originally published for the GEF-Telegraph Partnership .

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Human Impacts on the Environment

Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.

Help your students understand the impact humans have on the physical environment with these classroom resources.

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Human progress is no excuse to destroy nature. A push to make ‘ecocide’ a global crime must recognise this fundamental truth

Professor of Environmental Politics & International Relations, UNSW Sydney

Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney

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Scientists recently confirmed the Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, due to uncontrolled burning and deforestation. It brings the crucial ecosystem closer to a tipping point that would see it replaced by savanna and trigger accelerated global heating.

This is not an isolated example of nature being damaged at a mass scale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month confirmed global heating is now affecting every continent, region and ocean on Earth. That includes Australia, which is a global deforestation hotspot and where the Great Barrier Reef is headed for virtual extinction .

In the face of such horrors, a new international campaign is calling for “ecocide” – the killing of ecology – to be deemed an international “ super crime ” in the order of genocide. The campaign has attracted high-profile supporters including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Making ecocide an international crime is an appropriate response to the gravity of this harm and could help prevent mass environmental destruction. But whether it does so will depend on how the crime is defined.

Defining ecocide

The global campaign is being led by the Stop Ecocide Foundation . Last month an independent legal panel advising the campaign released a proposed amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It would make ecocide a crime, defining it as:

unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.

Defining a new international crime is a tricky balance. It must:

• capture the gravity, nature and extent of the harm
• set appropriate, but not impossible, standards of proof
• set moral standards that other international laws should follow.

The draft definition marks an important step in getting ecocide on the international agenda. And it does a good job of defining and balancing the core elements of ecocide – “severe” and either “widespread” or “long-term” damage to “any element of the environment”.

Laudably, these core elements show a concern for ecosystem integrity, human rights to a healthy environment, and the way grave damage to ecosystems can have devastating local and planetary consequences well into the future. This is a significant achievement.

Despite these strengths, lawyers and scholars , including ourselves, have identified problems with the definition.

Read more: Repeating mistakes: why the plan to protect the world’s wildlife falls short

Towards an ecological approach

A key concern is that the proposed definition considers only “unlawful” or “wanton” acts to be ecocide.

Most environmental destruction is not illegal. We need look no further than Australia’s land clearing laws or, indeed, federal environment law which has comprehensively failed to protect nature.

Under the proposed definition, lawful acts are only ecocidal if they are “wanton” – defined as “reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic and benefits anticipated”.

This condition assumes some ecocidal damage is acceptable in the name of human progress. According to the panel, such “socially beneficial acts” might include building housing developments and transport links.

This assumption furthers the human-centred privilege and “ get-out-of-jail ” clauses that have so weakened international environmental law to date.

We are not saying that housing, transport links or farms should not be built. But, in a period some scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction , they cannot come at the expense of crucial species and ecosystems. Sustainable development must respect this boundary.

The assumption also fails to recognise the gravity of ecocide. Such trade-offs – formally known as “derogations” – are rejected by international conventions governing slavery, torture, sexual violence, and fundamental human rights.

For example, the Convention Against Torture states:

no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

An international crime of ecocide must meet a similar standard. It should recognise that all forms of life, and the ecological systems that support them, have value for their own sake.

This perspective is known as multispecies justice . It holds that human well-being is bound to flourishing ecosystems, which have an intrinsic value outside the human use for them.

Genocide – the annihilation of human groups – is recognised as a crime against humanity. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt argued, genocide is an attack on human diversity that erodes the “very nature of mankind” and poses a grave threat to global order.

In the same way, the definition of ecocide should recognise that acts which destroy biological diversity, and lead to species extinction, threaten the very nature and survival of Earth’s multi-species community.

In Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, the Balkans and more recently Myanmar , millions were killed and dispersed under a crime against humanity known as “ethnic cleansing”. Yet this killing and dispersal is happening to non-human communities as we write. The vast habitat destroyed by deforestation is as important to displaced animals as our homes are to us.

And this is a shared calamity. Mass environmental destruction is an attack on the foundations of all life that makes up the biosphere, of which humanity is only a part.

Read more: There's no end to the damage humans can wreak on the climate. This is how bad it's likely to get

What should be done?

The Stop Ecocide Foundation says the proposed definition will now be “made available for states to consider”.

As they do so, we ought to work towards a definition of ecocide that puts non-human lives at its centre. The crime of ecocide must be defined in a way that honours its victims – the myriad beings of the Earth.

In the meantime, political efforts to rein in biodiversity destruction must become an urgent global priority. And citizens can press their governments to criminalise the ecocidal acts that have become business as usual.

The Stop Ecocide Foundation chair Jojo Mehta provided the following response to this article:

The “unlawful or wanton” threshold is important, for the following reasons.

The other international crimes are based on acts which are already criminal under national laws. Not only would it be a stretch to expect states to accept a completely new across-the-board offence at international level, but it would crudely cut across both national legislation and the work of all those improving regulation and best practice.

With the word “unlawful”, existing laws in their specificity are given much needed reinforcement, and the evolution of new ones is supported. Thus the crime will dynamically grow more powerful, while respecting differences between national bodies of law.

“Wanton” addresses cases where the activity is legal but the likely destruction is disproportionately severe. It shouldn’t be assumed that the social and economic benefits mentioned are those of investors or wealthy consumers, nor that these will outweigh damage.

Effects, including cultural effects, on local and indigenous communities, and the wider implications of ecological harm, must be considered too.

This definition doesn’t aim to prevent each and every form of environmental harm – that is the job of national laws and regulations - but to make it clear that provoking the worst harms is a deeply serious crime worthy of sitting alongside genocide and war crimes. This is an incredibly powerful and – we believe – a profoundly transformative message.

Read more: Ordinary people, extraordinary change: addressing the climate emergency through 'quiet activism'

• International law
• Great Barrier Reef
• land clearing
• Environmental damage
• Environmental destruction
• environmental laws
• International crime

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

Project Officer, Student Volunteer Program

Audience Development Coordinator (fixed-term maternity cover)

Lecturer (Hindi-Urdu)

Director, Defence and Security

How we must stop destroying nature

Filed under Coronavirus Climate Emergency

12 April 2021

At TTU we highlight cutting edge trends to alert leaders on why they must change how they think. We also share examples of great leadership and insights as an inspiration for others.

Here we publish a powerful alert on the urgent challenges we confront to save the planet that we all take for granted. The details and warnings are sobering. But none of us can afford to ignore them. To save nature we must all urgently change the way we conduct our lives.

This is an edited and shortened version of remarks delivered by Inger Andersen , Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the London School of Economics on 20 January 2021

As we seek to overcome this terrible pandemic, we must do so in the knowledge that it is not something that we can just fix, wash our hands of, and return to normal. Why? Because it is normal that brought us where we are today.

The pandemic has shown that we must rethink our very relationship with nature. It is our destruction of wild species, which is implicated in the emergence of the many diseases that jump from animals to humans, such as COVID-19.

The pandemic is a warning from the planet. Unless we change our ways, much worse lies in store. It’s a warning that we must heed. After years of promise - but not enough action - we must finally hear that warning and get on top of three planetary crises that threaten our collective future.

Existential crises

These are: the climate crisis, the biodiversity and nature crisis, and the pollution and waste crisis. These are three existential crises that threaten all of humanity.

In 2020 when we were consumed by the pandemic, climate change didn’t let up. 2020 was a year where we broke even, with both 2016 as the hottest year on record.

In 2020 we saw Atlantic hurricane season with more storms than ever recorded. We saw plagues of locusts from Yemen to East Africa, devouring our crops. We saw right now 2 billion people living in water stress. We’ve seen wildfires, floods, droughts. They have become so commonplace that many times they don’t even make the news.

And then there is the water, the biodiversity and nature crisis. Even as we talk about climate, we have to look at nature too, where our existence threatens nature severely.

Nature unravels

Nature is declining at an unprecedented speed. Around 1 million species of about 7.8 million that exist on our planet, are facing extinction. Humans have altered about 75% of the terrestrial surface of our planet. And we have altered about 66% of our oceans.

But while nature has intrinsic value, we also need to understand that nature’s loss is more than losing an orchid here, or a butterfly there. As we degrade our ecosystems, we are chipping away at the very foundations that make life possible.

Food, rainfall, temperature regulation, economic growth, pollination, the roofs over our heads, the clothes we wear, just to name but a few of nature’s services to us.

And then waste and pollution. There is that toxic trail of our economic growth. Every year pollution causes millions of premature deaths. Around one third of all rivers in Latin America, Asia and Africa suffer from severe pollution.

We throw away 50 million tonnes of electronic waste every year, roughly equal to the weight of all commercial airlines ever made.

The pandemic is obviously worsening the waste problem. Millions of disposable masks and PPE which we need making its way into the garbage stream.

We have known about these problems for some time. But the sad truth is that the world hasn’t acted strongly enough on the science before us.

That applies to the three planetary crisis and to every international agreement from the Sustainable Development Goals to the Paris Agreement to the Biodiversity Convention.

Failed commitments

Promises have been made. But now is the age of promises behind us. Now is the era of action.

As the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his State of the Planet speech in December 2020, making peace with nature is a defining task of the 21st century.

But the question is how to make that happen?

There are four areas where we can act: the economic and business sphere, governance, science and our everyday lives.

1. Economy and business

The starting point for making economic and business decisions that address the three planetary crisis is this. Instead of short term gain that brings long term pain, it is to recognise the true value of nature, and the Earth’s systems that regulate our seasons, our weather, our rainfall, and assures our very existence on this planet.

The Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity, makes clear that human health and prosperity cannot happen without nature. Over half of the global gross domestic product depends on nature.

Never mind the services that nature provides free of charge, such as climate regulation, water filtering, protection against natural disasters, and so on.

Economic benefit of biodiversity

Protecting nature and the climate, and limiting pollution and waste, is not only smart economic decision. Quite frankly they are non-negotiable for future economic prosperity.

But somehow, this seems to be a lesson that many have yet to learn. And it’s confounding to me.

It should be glaringly obvious that the old understanding that it’s economy versus environment just doesn’t hold true.

The increase in our wealth has come at the expense of our natural wealth, our natural capital, the planet stock of renewable and non renewable resources. They have declined by 40%.

In the same period, the WEF’s Global Risk Report 2020 ranked biodiversity and ecosystem collapse as one of the top five risks we would face within the next 10 years.

On the other hand, of course, ecosystems and biodiversity can bring huge economic benefits.

Overall the business opportunities from transforming the food, the land in the ocean systems could generate $3.6 trillion of additional revenue, while creating hundreds of millions of jobs.

Nature is an asset

So any way we slice and dice it, nature is an asset, an asset class that we need to think about. And we are eating into it much faster than it can regenerate.

To fix this error, we need to ensure that nature enters economic and financial decision making. We can’t assume that it is a free public good. The best way to assure that is one of the key ways is to move away from GDP as an indicator and use an inclusive wealth measure that measures all forms of capital.

The Global Commission on economy and climate told us that transitioning to low carbon growth could generate some $26 trillion and create over 65 million jobs by 2030. So tackling the three planetary crisis is a smart decision for economists and business.

2. Governance

Yes, the world has made many promises through the Sustainable Development Goals, through the Paris Agreement, through international goals and biodiversity and through goals on chemicals and pollution. But we haven’t done enough to move beyond the good intentions across the board.

Promises alone are not enough. Six years ago, nations arrived at this historic agreement in Paris to limit global warming this century to well below two degrees and to pursue 1.5. Yet now, our UNEP’s emissions gap report of December 2020 tells us that the pledges and actions under the Paris Agreement must get much stronger this year, or we are set towards a rise of over three degrees this century.

The pandemic-linked economic slowdown where we saw a dip in greenhouse gas emissions - yes, that did happen. But it will have a very, very, very negligible next-to-no-impact on global long term temperatures. That is because the CO2 bathtub was already full. So turning off the tap for a couple of seconds does not make it empty now.

Governments must deliver on commitments

To get back on track for a two degree world, we have no choice, but to cut one third of our emissions off by 2030. And if we want to, and we really do, aim for the 1.5 degree world, we have to halve our emissions.

It’s the same for biodiversity. In 2010 we agreed on a series of biodiversity targets that we had said we would reach by 2020. And by 2020 we have reached none of them. None!

So to catch up, governments must now act on three fronts. They must deliver on commitments made. They must strengthen and better focus their commitments. And they must ensure that actions on these three crises are joined up.

Clearly, the post pandemic recovery is a great way to speed up delivery. Every bit of UNEP research that we have produced in recent months shows us that for the pandemic recovery stimulus packages and this massive opportunity, never before have we put so much money - public money - into the economy.

We have calculated the potential to cut by around 25% our emissions by 2030 if we green these stimulus packages.

That would mean clearly ensuring that we do not borrow from the future generation and then leave them both with a broken planet and a mountain of debt.

What we therefore need to do is to put money into decarbonisation, into nature positive agriculture, into sustainable infrastructure, into climate change adaptation measures that protect the vulnerable, etc.

All-of-government dimension

That’s our target to make those recovery packages - stimulus packages – green on all fronts on all three crisis. And governments must make stronger, smarter and more trackable commitments right now.

So we need to be careful about not making just promises.

Like the person who pledges on January 1 to run a marathon by the end of the year, we have to get ready for that race. Net Zero commitments have been made. We celebrate that. But we cannot wait to turn these net zero commitments by 2050 into strong near term policies with time bound commitments that deliver action on the ground.

They must be included in what are called the NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) which are essentially the plans that countries would submit under Paris every five years.

So let’s submit stronger and more determined NDC’s so that we ensure we fold in the stimulus promises they are in. And the same for biodiversity.

We need to ensure that these targets are made. That we shift towards better managed conservation areas, that we deliver nature positive agriculture and fisheries, that we end harmful subsidies, that we move to sustainable patterns of production and consumption.

And the same goes for chemicals. We need chemicals in our economy. But we have to use them safely.

What can governments do?

They need to act in a joined up manner between governments, business, communities and citizens. Think what that means - a cooler climate, that will protect biodiversity, slow desertification, conserve nature, drive down poverty, help provide healthier lives and a healthier nature, store carbon, create buffers to impact on climate change.

Each one reinforces the other. Governments need to understand this and not delegate to the ministries of environment, or one department or the other. They must have an all-of-government dimension to the action plans that they roll out.

Science has done its job. Science has spoken. But like with good economics, it now needs to get into policies so we can and must do better. Science has to seek and speak out. It must understand diverse opinions and experiences.

Here we must accept that like with economics, science has not done as good a job as it could have done. Science and the world have been woken up to covert, overt, quiet, blind racism, sexism, white privilege. It is important that science of today understands bias and tackles the realities and the histories of the community that it touches.

We at UNEP work in science and we are very much aware of this. So we work to make science open, make it accessible and make it available to all. We have to digitise scientific knowledge and democratise its availability, so that people can access it, understand it and use it.

Ensuring that science speaks within the four walls of our homes is also critical. Without strong science that travels we cannot influence unsustainable consumption and production patterns which underpin our planetary crisis. People need to understand the impact that they have on the planet.

4. Our everyday lives

The fourth area is the personal responsibility that each one of us carries. Often when I speak to people they say “Yes! But this is so big that my actions don’t matter”.

So let me disabuse you of that notion. The fact is that if we live in the developed world, we are impacting on the planetary health unless we live off grid and we grow our own food. And we live with a rainwater that we’ve harvested. And we don’t travel, which we don’t do, most of us. But two thirds - two thirds - of all greenhouse gas emissions are linked to private households while our growing demands of food and materials are stripping the earth bare.

So right now, we require 1.6 Earths to maintain the current population and living standards. And of course, living standards are rising as they should. Many people need to move beyond the poverty in which they are now living. This means that there is an onus on those of us living wealthier lives, globally speaking.

This is an equity issue. The combined emissions of the richest 1% of the global population account for more than twice of the poorest 50%. Let that sink in for a moment.

Everyone has a responsibility

This global elite have no alternatives but to reduce our footprint, and significantly. Very significantly, So that we can stay within the Paris targets.

And just to be clear, an annual salary of $40,000 puts you in the top 10 of global earners, while around $110,000 puts you in the top 1%. So the top 1%, the global elite is at $110,000. This means that each one of us - whether we are in the top 10 – has a responsibility.

So we’re not talking about the mega wealthy. We’re talking about a responsibility that falls on us all. Each one of us have to look at our own lives.

I’m not here going to list everything that we can do because information is freely available. Let’s be honest: most of us know what we must do, from avoiding single use plastic to avoiding food waste, to being mindful of our travel and dietary choices, etc, etc. and our overall footprint.

We have a systems problem

It can be difficult to make choices that are good for the planet, particularly for those who struggle to make ends meet. But our societies depend heavily on fossil fuels, monoculture crops, wasteful packaging, and so much more.

So it is essential that we change that system. We do that politically, but we do that also by the individual choices. And by voting with our pound bills, or dollar bills or euros.

This will take time. But until then, we have to do what we can within the constraints of our circumstances - no matter how small - to change our lifestyles.

There’s no doubt that we have made progress on environmental issues in the last few decades. And we’ve made more commitments than ever.

We have more solutions available to us than ever. Business and investors are beginning to step up. Renewable energy is widespread and cheaper. Public awareness is at an all-time high. But climate change, nature loss, pollution and waste continue to outpace our efforts.

We can only overtake them if we speed up ourselves. We can and must do it.

COVID-19 has shown how quickly we can change our habits when we have to: bold leadership, tough decisions, and dedicated financing have saved lives. They have brought us to the point where within a year vaccination programmes are rolling out.

That same ingenuity. That same determination. That same commitment. That is what we now must draw on deeply to overcome what are really existential threats to humanity and the planet on which we hold so much sway.

Real, meaningful, and determined action to halt and reverse those three planetary crises is not just the smart option. It is the only option. If we want our economies and our businesses, our societies, and of course, our families to thrive and those that come after us to thrive, we have to take that action and to take it now.

Why 2020 is the year to reset humanity’s relationship with nature

This year's bushfires in Australia have been unprecedented. Image:  REUTERS/Jason Reed

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Marco Lambertini

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Stay up to date:, nature and biodiversity.

• Biodiversity loss is in top-5 global risks in authoritative new survey.
• In 2020, raft of big decisions to be taken on our relationship with nature.
• Business has a big interest in ensuring we stop degrading environment.

The pace of change over the past 50 years has been extraordinary. The global economy has expanded four-fold, over a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, we live significantly longer and childbirth mortality had significantly dropped. However, this 19th and 20th century model of economic growth has come at a significant cost to nature.

Globally, nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history, with up to 1 million species at risk of extinction due to human activity. Unprecedented forest fires - from the Arctic to the Amazon, Africa, Australia - have killed billions of animals, destroyed lives and wiped out huge areas of forest. Since 1970, there has been a 60% average population decline across all vertebrate species. Over the same period, we have lost more than half of the world’s coral reefs and over a third of all wetlands. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise , both intensifying extreme weather events and nature loss and putting efforts to meet the goals of Paris Agreement further off course.

Have you read?

Why the fight against nature loss should be a business priority, greener, healthier, more sustainable: why cities of the future need more biodiversity, our most powerful, high-tech climate solution our forests.

It is then no surprise that the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020 ranked biodiversity loss as one of the top five risks in terms of impact and likelihood over the coming decade. For the first time in planetary history, humans are the driver of climate and environmental change or what is being called by the scientists as the Anthropocene. Earth system scientists and researchers predict that if current rates of nature destruction continue unabated, some biomes (e.g. tundra, grasslands, coral reefs, forests, deserts) may cross irreversible tipping points. For example, nearly 17% of forest cover in the Amazon has been destroyed since 1970. If the rate of forest loss continues, and 20% to 25% of the forest is lost, scientists warn that the region will get pushed into a state of savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and leading to increased droughts and huge losses in agricultural production.

In the last 100 years, more than 90 percent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers’ fields, and all of the world’s 17 main fishing grounds are now being fished at or above their sustainable limits.

These trends have reduced diversity in our diets, which is directly linked to diseases or health risk factors, such as diabetes, obesity and malnutrition. One initiative which is bringing a renewed focus on biological diversity is the Tropical Forest Alliance .

This global public-private partnership is working on removing deforestation from four global commodity supply chains – palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper.

The Alliance includes businesses, governments, civil society, indigenous people and communities, and international organizations.

Enquire to become a member or partner of the Forum and help stop deforestation linked to supply chains.

UK economist Partha Dasgupta has acknowledged, “we economists see nature, when we see it at all, as a backdrop from which resources and services can be drawn in isolation”. We couldn’t agree more as challenges of nature loss are both wicked and non-linear. No single business and no single human on this planet can decouple its dependency from nature. The report Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy shows that $44 trillion of economic value generation – over half the world’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services, and therefore exposed to risks from nature loss. Intensive monocropping, industrial-scale fisheries and unsustainable construction have further exposed economies and societal well-being to nature-related risk.

There is an urgent need to reset humanity’s relationship with nature. Over the coming year, a series of decisions are set to be taken that will define the direction of our planet’s future. With an agreement on a new 2030 global biodiversity framework, the definition of national contributions to the Paris climate targets and the opportunity to embrace nature based solutions under the UN Climate Convention, a new treaty on the use of living marine resources in high seas, we have a chance to bring the environmental and sustainable development agendas together and deliver an ambitious and science based New Deal for Nature and People .

As world leaders gather in Davos under the theme of “ Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World ” there is a unique opportunity to adopt a growth model that is fit-for-purpose in the 21st century. With an increasing number of countries and companies working towards halting and reversing nature loss and securing a zero-net-emissions world by 2050, there is a unique opportunity to use the year 2020 to set in motion systemic changes for the coming decade towards a nature-positive economy. We must identify new mechanisms for financing and collaboration that are public-private and inspire a shared-narrative for halting, restoring and reversing the current trajectory of nature loss and climate change. Businesses create value to support a well-functioning society which in turn exists in delicate balance with the rest of the living beings on the planet. It is imperative that our business and economic structures reflect the necessity of maintaining this balance.

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Human Impact on Environment Essay

Ecological problem is one of the most important issues nowadays. Human activities have a negative impact on the environment. Humanity currently faces problems with air, water, and lands pollution, unreasonable agricultural systems, deforestation, and others. As a result, the number of available natural resources is decreasing. Another negative consequence of human activities is the process of global warming and global climate changes. These changes affect the whole Earth and might result in adverse consequences for people and wild nature (“The Consequences of Climate Change”). Therefore, it is obvious that the situation should be improved.

Probably, everybody asks oneself what he or she personally could do to improve the ecological situation. After all, the main source of pollution is the industry sector. However, we all belong to humanity and make our small impact on the environment. And we all could make the situation slightly better. Our daily habits have both positive and negative long-term consequences for the world we live in. It is important to understand to plan our life and our activities.

As far as my family and I are concerned, we performed several steps to reduce the negative impact on the environment. First of all, we all try to save clean water. We always remember to turn off our taps. We do not keep the water running when we brush teeth or wash something. Saving clean water is very important for the environment. The problem of clean water availability, probably, is one of the most pressing. No living creature can survive without clean water. Fewer sources we use, more of them remain for the future generation.

Another important action we perform to improve the situation with water is avoiding water pollution. Our family refused to use cleaning detergents with phosphates as it is known that these substances are harmful to human health. Moreover, it is difficult to eliminate these compounds from water. Therefore, phosphates in the water get to nature and poison living organisms. Thus, it is better to use detergents without phosphates. It helps to keep the healthy and to reduce water pollution.

Except for water pollution, there are a lot of other problems that need to be solved. One of them is waste deposits. These deposits occupy a large area. Different wastes need different (however, always significant) times to decompose. Besides, while decomposing, a lot of harmful compounds appear. These compounds poison the land and can get to the water. In the last decades, a lot of programs of waste separation appeared. People are asked to separate the waste: to combine plastic with plastic, organic with organic, and paper with paper. Different wastes are treated in different ways, which allows cutting pollution. For example, plastic can be remolded and used again, while it requires hundreds of years for its degradation in nature. Moreover, during this process, a lot of harmful products release (Law and Thompson 144). Thus, it is better to separate plastic material and recycle it. It would be even better not to use plastic at all, and when it is possible, try to use biopolymers instead.

It is important to understand that small steps are better than nothing. If we want to improve the ecological situation, we should start with ourselves, analyze our daily activities, and make improvements where it is possible. Carrying about our environment is our responsibility as citizens. Finally, the small effects of such actions might summarize positive global changes.

Works Cited

“The Consequences of Climate Change.” NASA . 2017, Web.

Law, Kara Lavender, and Richard C. Thompson. “Microplastics in the Seas.” Science, vol. 345, no. 6193, 2014, pp. 144-145.

• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Human Impact on Environment. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-impact-on-environment/

"Human Impact on Environment." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/human-impact-on-environment/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Human Impact on Environment'. 29 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Human Impact on Environment." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-impact-on-environment/.

1. IvyPanda . "Human Impact on Environment." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-impact-on-environment/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Human Impact on Environment." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-impact-on-environment/.

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Nature That Makes Us Human: Why We Keep Destroying Nature and How We Can Stop Doing So

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This book seeks to answer two fundamental questions: Why do humans keep destroying nature when science makes it clear that in doing so they risk their own destruction? How can this be stopped, and how can the unity of humans and nature be regained? First, the book shows that the inability of modern society to modify its relationship with nature has its roots in the collective fictions that have gradually shaped it since the Neolithic revolution. The collective fictions that underpin modernity include, in particular, the subject−object duality, the matter−mind duality, the primacy of rationality, and the superiority of the human species over all other living beings. These deeply ingrained fictions prevent people from acting in the word in agreement with their needs and existing knowledge. Second, the book argues that humans have a nature that defines them as a unique species beyond their cultural differences, and this nature is made not only of flesh and bones, but also of a set of fundamental needs. Fundamental needs connect humans with nature spontaneously because they are the manifestation of life in them. They also make it possible to re-establish the unity of body and mind and of the different forms of knowledge and to give the economy a new direction, focused on the development of the human being and of its living environment. Challenging collective fictions and reconnecting with humans’ deepest nature is essential in order to overcome the current ecological crisis and allow life on Earth to flourish.

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Nature Essay for Students and Children

500+ words nature essay.

Nature is an important and integral part of mankind. It is one of the greatest blessings for human life; however, nowadays humans fail to recognize it as one. Nature has been an inspiration for numerous poets, writers, artists and more of yesteryears. This remarkable creation inspired them to write poems and stories in the glory of it. They truly valued nature which reflects in their works even today. Essentially, nature is everything we are surrounded by like the water we drink, the air we breathe, the sun we soak in, the birds we hear chirping, the moon we gaze at and more. Above all, it is rich and vibrant and consists of both living and non-living things. Therefore, people of the modern age should also learn something from people of yesteryear and start valuing nature before it gets too late.

Significance of Nature

Nature has been in existence long before humans and ever since it has taken care of mankind and nourished it forever. In other words, it offers us a protective layer which guards us against all kinds of damages and harms. Survival of mankind without nature is impossible and humans need to understand that.

If nature has the ability to protect us, it is also powerful enough to destroy the entire mankind. Every form of nature, for instance, the plants , animals , rivers, mountains, moon, and more holds equal significance for us. Absence of one element is enough to cause a catastrophe in the functioning of human life.

We fulfill our healthy lifestyle by eating and drinking healthy, which nature gives us. Similarly, it provides us with water and food that enables us to do so. Rainfall and sunshine, the two most important elements to survive are derived from nature itself.

Further, the air we breathe and the wood we use for various purposes are a gift of nature only. But, with technological advancements, people are not paying attention to nature. The need to conserve and balance the natural assets is rising day by day which requires immediate attention.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conservation of Nature

In order to conserve nature, we must take drastic steps right away to prevent any further damage. The most important step is to prevent deforestation at all levels. Cutting down of trees has serious consequences in different spheres. It can cause soil erosion easily and also bring a decline in rainfall on a major level.

Polluting ocean water must be strictly prohibited by all industries straightaway as it causes a lot of water shortage. The excessive use of automobiles, AC’s and ovens emit a lot of Chlorofluorocarbons’ which depletes the ozone layer. This, in turn, causes global warming which causes thermal expansion and melting of glaciers.

Therefore, we should avoid personal use of the vehicle when we can, switch to public transport and carpooling. We must invest in solar energy giving a chance for the natural resources to replenish.

In conclusion, nature has a powerful transformative power which is responsible for the functioning of life on earth. It is essential for mankind to flourish so it is our duty to conserve it for our future generations. We must stop the selfish activities and try our best to preserve the natural resources so life can forever be nourished on earth.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [ { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “Why is nature important?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Nature is an essential part of our lives. It is important as it helps in the functioning of human life and gives us natural resources to lead a healthy life.” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “How can we conserve nature?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “We can take different steps to conserve nature like stopping the cutting down of trees. We must not use automobiles excessively and take public transport instead. Further, we must not pollute our ocean and river water.” } } ] }

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Destroying Nature Essay

Show More Nature is defined by Oxford Dictionary as “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations” (Oxford Dictionary). It is often seen with adjectives such as beautiful, awaking, fragrant, and many more. So, if nature is all of these wondrous things, then why are we so adamant in destroying it? There are four main ways humans are damaging the ecosystem, and they include: deforestation, consumption of animal products, hunting, and pollution. The nature advocacy advertisement created for Robin Wood, leader of Environmental Agency, remarkably and simply displays nature and the current ruining of it by deforestation. The …show more content… It states that “Destroying nature is destroying life.” This shows the entire point of the ad and is written plainly as a fact. It brings people to call themselves to action by thinking that they should be doing something about the environmental issues. In addition, it provides a gateway for onlookers to examine their lifestyle, and how they are affecting the environment. Some people may think twice about throwing their trash on the ground and remember the consequences of damaging the only thing that is keeping us alive, earth. Thus, it’s saying that one person, no matter what the action, can help nature flourish again by doing their part. Things such as recycling, planting a tree driving, hybrid vehicles, and becoming involved in major organizations. The text is in plain black and not bolded. This is because the viewer is supposed to direct their attention directly to the picture and then read the text. They both directly correlate, but in this case, the picture is speaking louder than the words. The text is also placed at the bottom of the page, in the right hand corner. This is because the picture is supposed to speak for itself, and therefore, should grasp your attention before the words do. It is in the right hand corner because we read things left to right, and ensures that the words will be the last thing you see in the advertisement …show more content… Although, there is little text and logical reasoning for the advertisement as to why are we killing the only thing that is keeping us alive. If you think about it, it is an intelligent statement to make. This proves that people are essentially killing themselves. Support for the argument is displayed very clearly and allows the viewer to take a more heavily approach. Also, the company Robin Wood provides us with a more logical argument. This company is an environmental advocacy company. This company fights for the rights of animals and nature and raises awareness on saving the environment. They all come together to help you question whether we are doing the right thing by taking all nature had to offer and not doing anything

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In today’s world, global warming is common knowledge to most people. Every day global warming gets worse. Some people in today’s society are eager to stop global warming because they are aware of the problems that global warming is causing to people and the Earth. Across the world, people know that industrial smokestacks are a big cause of global warming in today’s society. Some people believe that by ignoring global warming that it will not affect them, and that they can’t make a difference.…

1984 Significance Of Nature Essay

The Significance of Nature There many meaning implied to the term nature. In many cultures nature to is referred to as freedom, a place where one can escape from the world and step into a new world filled of natural beauty. In Orwell’s novel 1984 you would think of the society of Oceania as anything but beautiful, with a dictator government, surveillance all around, and yet the term nature is still very much implied. In 1984, there are many significances to the word nature including- the symbolizing of freedom, the symbolization of beauty and it shows the destruction of the laws of nature. To begin with, Orwell shows how Winston’s time beyond the city and being emerged in nature is a symbol of freedom.…

A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Endangered Wildlife Trust

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Human destruction of nature is 'senseless and suicidal', warns UN chief

UN report offers bedrock for hope for broken planet, says António Guterres

Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said.

Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year.

Making peace with nature was the defining task of the coming decades, he said, and the key to a prosperous and sustainable future for all people. The report combines recent major UN assessments with the latest research and the solutions available, representing an authoritative scientific blueprint of how to repair the planet.

The report says societies and economies must be transformed by policies such as replacing GDP as an economic measure with one that reflects the true value of nature, as recommended this month by a study commissioned by the UK Treasury .

Carbon emissions need to be taxed , and trillions of dollars of “perverse” subsidies for fossil fuels and destructive farming must be diverted to green energy and food production, the report says. As well as systemic changes, people in rich nations can act too, it says, by cutting meat consumption and wasting less energy and water.

“Humanity is waging war on nature. This is senseless and suicidal,” said Guterres. “The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses, and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth.”

The triple emergency threatened our viability as a species, he said. But ending the war would not mean poorer living standards or an end to poverty reduction. “On the contrary, making peace with nature, securing its health and building on the critical and undervalued benefits that it provides are key to a prosperous and sustainable future for all.”

“This report provides the bedrock for hope,” he said. “It makes clear our war on nature has left the planet broken. But it also guides us to a safer place by providing a peace plan and a postwar rebuilding programme.”

Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), said: “We need to look no further than the global pandemic caused by Covid-19, a disease transmitted from animals to humans, to know that the finely tuned system of the natural world has been disrupted.” Unep and the World Health Organization have said the root cause of pandemics is the destruction of the natural world , with worse outbreaks to come unless action is taken.

The report says the fivefold growth of the global economy in the last 50 years was largely fuelled by a huge increase in the extraction of fossil fuels and other resources, and has come at massive cost to the environment. The world population has doubled since 1970 and while average prosperity has also doubled, 1.3 billion people remain in poverty and 700 million are hungry.

It says current measures to tackle the environmental crises are far short of what is needed: the world remains on track for catastrophic warming of 3C above pre-industrial levels, a million species face extinction and 90% of people live with dirty air .

“We use three-quarters of the land and two-thirds of the oceans – we are completely dominating the Earth,” said Ivar Baste of the Norwegian Environment Agency, a lead author of the report.

Prof Sir Robert Watson, who has led UN scientific assessments on climate and biodiversity and is the other lead author of the report, said: “We have got a triple emergency and these three issues are all interrelated and have to be dealt with together. They’re no longer just environmental issues – they are economic issues, development issues, security issues, social, moral and ethical issues.

“Of all the things we have to do, we have to really rethink our economic and financial systems. Fundamentally, GDP doesn’t take nature into account. We need to get rid of these perverse subsidies, they are $5-7tn a year. If you could move some of these towards low-carbon technology and investing in nature, then the money is there.”

This meant taking on companies and countries with vested interests in fossil fuels, he said: “There are a lot of people that really like these perverse subsidies. They love the status quo. So governments have to have the guts to act”.

Financial institutions could play a huge role, Watson said, by ending funding for fossil fuels, the razing of forests and large-scale monoculture agriculture. Companies should act too, he said: “Proactive companies see that if they can be sustainable, they can be first movers and make a profit. But in some cases, regulation will almost certainly be needed for those companies that don’t care.”

Pollution was included in the report because despite improvements in some wealthy nations, toxic air, water, soils and workplaces cause at least 9 million deaths a year , one in six of all deaths. “This is still a huge issue,” said Baste.

The world’s nations will gather at two crucial UN summits in 2021 on the climate and biodiversity crises. “We know we failed miserably on the biodiversity targets [set in 2010],” said Watson. “I’ll be very disappointed if at these summits all they talk about is targets and goals. They’ve got to talk about actions – that’s really what’s crucial.”

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Guest Essay

The Two-State Solution Is an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy

By Tareq Baconi

Mr. Baconi is the author of “Hamas Contained” and the president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.

But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West in exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.

It will not be. Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel’s regime of apartheid.

The circumstances facing Palestinians before Oct. 7, 2023, exemplified how deadly the status quo had become. In 2022, Israeli violence killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank, the most in 15 years, and by mid-2023, that rate was on track to exceed those levels. Yet the Biden administration still saw fit to further legitimize Israel, expanding its diplomatic relations in the region and rewarding it with a U.S. visa waiver . Palestine was largely absent from the international agenda until Israeli Jews were killed on Oct. 7. The fact that Israel and its allies were ill prepared for any kind of challenge to Israeli rule underscores just how invisible the Palestinians were and how sustainable their oppression was deemed to be on the global stage.

This moment of historical rupture offers blood-soaked proof that policies to date have failed, yet countries seek to resurrect them all the same. Instead of taking measures showing a genuine commitment to peace — like meaningfully pressuring Israel to end settlement building and lift the blockade on Gaza or discontinuing America’s expansive military support — Washington is doing the opposite. The United States has aggressively wielded its use of its veto at the United Nations Security Council, and even when it abstains, as it did in the recent vote leading to the first resolution for a cease-fire since Oct. 7, it claims such resolutions are nonbinding. The United States is funding Israel’s military while defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a critical institution for Palestinians, bolstering the deeply unpopular and illegitimate Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians now consider to be a subcontractor to the occupation, and subverting international law by limiting avenues of accountability for Israel. In effect, these actions safeguard Israeli impunity.

The vacuity of the two-state solution mantra is most obvious in how often policymakers speak of recognizing a Palestinian state without discussing an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Quite the contrary: With the United States reportedly exploring initiatives to recognize Palestinian statehood, it is simultaneously defending Israel’s prolonged occupation at the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel faces “very real security needs” that justify its continued control over Palestinian territories.

What might explain this seeming contradiction?

The concept of partition has long been used as a blunt policy tool by colonial powers to manage the affairs of their colonies, and Palestine was no exception. The Zionist movement emerged within the era of European colonialism and was given its most important imprimatur by the British Empire. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British in 1917, called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine without adequately accounting for the Palestinians who constituted a vast majority in the region and whom Balfour referred to simply as “non-Jewish communities.” This declaration was then imposed on the Palestinians, who by 1922 had become Britain’s colonized subjects and were not asked to give consent to the partitioning of their homeland. Three decades later, the United Nations institutionalized partition with the passage of the 1947 plan, which called for partitioning Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish.

All of Palestine’s neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had achieved independence from their colonial rulers and joined the United Nations voted against the 1947 plan. The Palestinians were not formally considered in a vote that many saw as illegitimate; it partitioned their homeland to accommodate Zionist immigration, which they had resisted from the onset. The Palestine Liberation Organization, established more than a decade later, formalized this opposition, insisting that Palestine as defined within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate was “an indivisible territorial unit”; it forcefully refused two states and by the late 1970s was fighting for a secular, democratic state. By the 1980s, however, the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat, along with most of the organization’s leadership, had come to accept that partition was the pragmatic choice, and many Palestinians who had by then been ground down by the machinery of the occupation accepted it as a way of achieving separateness from Israeli settlers and the creation of their own state.

It took more than three decades for Palestinians to understand that separateness would never come, that the goal of this policy was to maintain the illusion of partition in some distant future indefinitely. In that twilight zone, Israel’s expansionist violence increased and became more forthright, as Israeli leaders became more brazen in their commitment to full control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel also relied on discredited Palestinian leaders to sustain their control — primarily those who lead the Palestinian Authority and who collaborate with Israel’s machinations and make do with nonsovereign, noncontiguous Bantustans that never challenge Israel’s overarching domination. This kind of demographic engineering, which entails geographic isolation of unwanted populations behind walls, is central to apartheid regimes. Repeating the aspiration for two states and arguing that partition remains viable presents Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — separate from its occupation — giving it a veneer of palatability and obfuscating the reality that it rules over more non-Jews than Jews .

Seen in this light, the failed attempts at a two-state solution are not a failure for Israel at all but a resounding success, as they have fortified Israel’s grip over this territory while peace negotiations ebbed and flowed but never concluded. In recent years, international and Israeli human rights organizations have acknowledged what many Palestinians have long argued: that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, concluded that Israel is a singular regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.

Now, with international attention once again focused on the region, many Palestinians understand the dangers of discussing partition, even as a pragmatic option. Many refuse to resuscitate this hollowed-out policy-speak. In a message recently published anonymously, a group of Palestinians on the ground and in the diaspora state wrote: “The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people and the final completion of the nakba,” or catastrophe, which refers to the expulsion and flight of about 750,000 Palestinians with Israel’s founding. “Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.”

For them, the Palestinian state that their inept leaders continue to peddle, even if achievable, would fail to undo the fact that Palestinian refugees are unable to return to their homes, now in Israel, and that Palestinian citizens of Israel would continue to reside as second-class citizens within a so-called Jewish state.

Global powers might choose to ignore this sentiment as unrealistic, if they even take note of it. They might also choose to ignore Israeli rejection of a two-state solution, as Israeli leaders drop any pretenses and explicitly oppose any pathway to Palestinian statehood. As recently as January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River.” He added, “That collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can we do?”

And yet the two-state solution continues to be at the forefront for policymakers who have returned to contorting the reality of an expansionist regime into a policy prescription they can hold on to. They cycle through provisions that the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, that Israel will maintain security oversight, that not every state in the world has the same level of sovereignty. It is like watching a century of failure, culminating in the train wreck of the peace process, replay itself in the span of the past five months.

This will not be the first time that Palestinian demands are not taken into account as far as their own future is concerned. But all policymakers should heed the lesson of Oct. 7: There will be neither peace nor justice while Palestinians are subjugated behind walls and under Israeli domination.

A single state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?

Source photographs by Jose A. Bernat Bacete, Daily Herald Archive and Lior Mizrahi, via Getty Images.

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• BOOK REVIEW
• 29 March 2024

The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness?

• Candice L. Odgers 0

Candice L. Odgers is the associate dean for research and a professor of psychological science and informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She also co-leads international networks on child development for both the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Toronto and the Jacobs Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland.

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Social-media platforms aren’t always social. Credit: Getty

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt Allen Lane (2024)

Two things need to be said after reading The Anxious Generation . First, this book is going to sell a lot of copies, because Jonathan Haidt is telling a scary story about children’s development that many parents are primed to believe. Second, the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science. Worse, the bold proposal that social media is to blame might distract us from effectively responding to the real causes of the current mental-health crisis in young people.

Haidt asserts that the great rewiring of children’s brains has taken place by “designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears”. And that “by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale”. Such serious claims require serious evidence.

Collection: Promoting youth mental health

Haidt supplies graphs throughout the book showing that digital-technology use and adolescent mental-health problems are rising together. On the first day of the graduate statistics class I teach, I draw similar lines on a board that seem to connect two disparate phenomena, and ask the students what they think is happening. Within minutes, the students usually begin telling elaborate stories about how the two phenomena are related, even describing how one could cause the other. The plots presented throughout this book will be useful in teaching my students the fundamentals of causal inference, and how to avoid making up stories by simply looking at trend lines.

Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers 1 .

These are not just our data or my opinion. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews converge on the same message 2 – 5 . An analysis done in 72 countries shows no consistent or measurable associations between well-being and the roll-out of social media globally 6 . Moreover, findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, the largest long-term study of adolescent brain development in the United States, has found no evidence of drastic changes associated with digital-technology use 7 . Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, is a gifted storyteller, but his tale is currently one searching for evidence.

Of course, our current understanding is incomplete, and more research is always needed. As a psychologist who has studied children’s and adolescents’ mental health for the past 20 years and tracked their well-being and digital-technology use, I appreciate the frustration and desire for simple answers. As a parent of adolescents, I would also like to identify a simple source for the sadness and pain that this generation is reporting.

A complex problem

There are, unfortunately, no simple answers. The onset and development of mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are driven by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors. Suicide rates among people in most age groups have been increasing steadily for the past 20 years in the United States. Researchers cite access to guns, exposure to violence, structural discrimination and racism, sexism and sexual abuse, the opioid epidemic, economic hardship and social isolation as leading contributors 8 .

How social media affects teen mental health: a missing link

The current generation of adolescents was raised in the aftermath of the great recession of 2008. Haidt suggests that the resulting deprivation cannot be a factor, because unemployment has gone down. But analyses of the differential impacts of economic shocks have shown that families in the bottom 20% of the income distribution continue to experience harm 9 . In the United States, close to one in six children live below the poverty line while also growing up at the time of an opioid crisis, school shootings and increasing unrest because of racial and sexual discrimination and violence.

The good news is that more young people are talking openly about their symptoms and mental-health struggles than ever before. The bad news is that insufficient services are available to address their needs. In the United States, there is, on average, one school psychologist for every 1,119 students 10 .

Haidt’s work on emotion, culture and morality has been influential; and, in fairness, he admits that he is no specialist in clinical psychology, child development or media studies. In previous books, he has used the analogy of an elephant and its rider to argue how our gut reactions (the elephant) can drag along our rational minds (the rider). Subsequent research has shown how easy it is to pick out evidence to support our initial gut reactions to an issue. That we should question assumptions that we think are true carefully is a lesson from Haidt’s own work. Everyone used to ‘know’ that the world was flat. The falsification of previous assumptions by testing them against data can prevent us from being the rider dragged along by the elephant.

A generation in crisis

Two things can be independently true about social media. First, that there is no evidence that using these platforms is rewiring children’s brains or driving an epidemic of mental illness. Second, that considerable reforms to these platforms are required, given how much time young people spend on them. Many of Haidt’s solutions for parents, adolescents, educators and big technology firms are reasonable, including stricter content-moderation policies and requiring companies to take user age into account when designing platforms and algorithms. Others, such as age-based restrictions and bans on mobile devices, are unlikely to be effective in practice — or worse, could backfire given what we know about adolescent behaviour.

A third truth is that we have a generation in crisis and in desperate need of the best of what science and evidence-based solutions can offer. Unfortunately, our time is being spent telling stories that are unsupported by research and that do little to support young people who need, and deserve, more.

Nature 628 , 29-30 (2024)

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Vuorre, M. & Przybylski, A. K. R. Sci. Open Sci. 10 , 221451 (2023).

Miller, J., Mills, K. L., Vuorre, M., Orben, A. & Przybylski, A. K. Cortex 169 , 290–308 (2023).

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US Department of Education. State Nonfiscal Public Elementary/Secondary Education Survey 2022–2023 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024).

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The author declares no competing interests.

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