International Day of Biodiversity: Building a Shared Future for All
The world will be celebrating International Day of Biodiversity on May 22, under a crucial theme: “Building a shared future for all.” The 2022 theme was chosen in order to continue building momentum and support for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework being adopted at the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference #COP15. Additionally, this theme is inextricably linked to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which highlights how conserving biodiversity remains a key solution to sustainable development challenges.
Biodiversity has the ability to overturn the negative impacts of climate change by restoring and maintaining balance in our ecosystem. Biodiversity also improves people’s quality of life through food and water security alongside physical health. Following this year’s theme, one way to “build back” a better future is to implement agroecological approaches such as Natural Agriculture. Through this practice, farmers are taught to respect and listen to nature and utilize indigenous local seeds. This approach cultivates the soil with minimal intervention and without the use of agrochemicals. By incorporating this practice into our current agriculture approaches, we can successfully promote biodiversity, help revitalize the ecosystem, and bring back a complexity of living organisms such as local insects and plant species.
In celebration of International Day of Biodiversity, here is a quote by Thomas Berry, whose profound words reflect our connection with earth’s biodiversity.
“We see quite clearly that what happens
to the nonhuman happens to the human.
What happens to the outer world
happens to the inner world.
If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur
then the emotional, imaginative,
intellectual, and spiritual life of the human
is diminished or extinguished.
Without the soaring birds, the great forests,
the sounds and coloration of the insects,
the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields,
the sight of the clouds by day
and the stars at night, we become impoverished
in all that makes us human.”
― Thomas Berry
