Zhou Jinfeng signs the Petition for Global Deal for Nature (GDN) | IPBES will publish its first Global Assessment Report on May 6
2019/5/7 15:51:00 本站

On May 6, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will publish its first Global Assessment Report to ring the alarm bell for the emergency of global biodiversity conservation. In response to the release of this report, Dr. Zhou Jinfeng, the Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), has signed the Petition for Global Deal for Nature (GDN) which is calling on the world leaders to protect half of our lands and seas.  

 

Thriving nature is essential to life on the earth. The food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, are all pillars of human survival that depend on a series of delicately balanced interactions within the natural world." Through harnessing the crude materials generously provided by nature, a human can plant crops, abstract medicine, and get what they need to survive and live. Therefore, anyone who disturbs the balance of nature is destroying his own living environment.

 

The report by IPBES discloses the worrying current situation of our nature: species extinction, wildlife decline, habitat loss, and exhausted ecological resources. According to the petition, "these systems are being thrown dangerously off balance by an onslaught of human activities. From pesticides on our fields to plastics choking our oceans to bulldozers in our forests, all over the planet, the natural world is under assault."

 

Dr. Zhou Jinfeng said, “we must change our lifestyle and production mode in a radical way. We should abandon the values of changing and conquering the nature obtained in the industrial civilization and develop new values of respecting and conserving nature. It is essential to protect earth resources, biodiversity, and natural habitats, and take actions to maintain the balance of the ecosystem, thus achieving sustainable development and creating a community of shared future for mankind. This is the inexorable trend of civilization development."

 

The challenge we are facing is great, but it doesn't mean there is no solution. For instance, Future Earth has established the Earth Committee, aiming to integrate the findings of existing scientific researches to provide suggestions and feasible plan on earth protection and restoration. It is estimated that the pledge to "hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius" is achievable as long as pertinent actions can be effectively implemented.

 

Taking planetary boundary research as another example, it is a science organically integrating the fundamentals of the earth system, the essence of human activity, and the consequence of human behavior, to identify and analyze the key challenges about future sustainable development. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and Robert Costanza, members of Club of Rome, are two major promoters of this study.

 

CBCGDF holds the view that public participation serves as the solid foundation of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, and it also contributes to addressing climate change. CBCDGF's "Walk your chopsticks", "Reduce Plastics and Pick-up Plastics", "Say No to Plastics book covers" and other initiatives are encouraging people to change their behaviors and create a green environment in daily life. CBCGDF's initiatives range from the appeal for forestry and environment conservation, and the calling on enterprises, especially e-commerce and takeaway platforms, to undertake social responsibility. Moreover, CBCGDF mobilizes its volunteers in China to pick up plastics along rivers and lakes in the spare time, so as to reduce plastics pollution and ease the environmental burden. In 2020, the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) will be held in Kunming, Yunnan. CBCGDF will share its stories about public engagement in earth protection at the Conference and contribute to the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.


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(Photo source: Internet)


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4937/8498.html


Reference link:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/English/NewsShow/5011/8393.html


By / Wang Yanqing