Bhubaneswar: Earth Day is celebrated across the globe April 22 every year. It was first celebrated in 1970.
The official theme for Earth Day 2022 is ‘Invest In Our Planet’. According to the experts, restoration of our ecosystem will help us to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent mass extinction.
But, we will succeed in this regard only when everyone plays a role in the protection of our environment, the endangered species and their habitats.
As we are celebrating the 52nd Earth Day Friday, Orissa POST talks to a few city-based environmental experts and try to find out what investment needed to be done for protection of our mother Earth.
Ranjan Panda, an expert on water and climate change issues, said we need to invest in two things without fail for achieving the climate goals to keep the planet healthy.
Firstly, we need to protect the natural forests that absorb carbon dioxide. At present, the forests cover a third of our planet’s surface, Panda said.
Secondly, we need to support the local and indigenous communities of the world who have been preserving this natural wealth. In a report last year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN recognised the importance of indigenous communities as best guardians of our forests.
The report concludes that territories owned collectively by indigenous peoples have avoided up to 59.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year across only three countries. This has been possible due their protection efforts that resulted in reduced deforestation rates. Calculated in another way, this could translate into keeping around 12.6 million vehicles off the roads for a year, Panda said.
In India, thousands of villagers are protecting natural forests and they have emerged as climate champions. Many of them are still struggling to get their due recognition. Their rights over the local forests must be recognised at the earliest. That would be our best investment for a healthy planet, Panda added.
Environmental expert Jaya Krushna Panigrahi said emphasis should be laid on reducing our carbon footprints by curtailing the use of fossil fuels, preserving the quality of our environment, conserving the natural resources for the use of future generations and protecting the biodiversity. Our actions need to grow into a movement engrossing governments, institutions, business establishments and citizens in general.
Human-induced global warming and climate change being the toughest challenges of our time, the mankind ought to make course correction by investing in restoration of the health of our planet and thus, protecting the living world, added Panigrahi.
Environmentalist Sudarshan Das said investment on creation of awareness regarding the safety of our planet Earth is need of the hour. This apart, we should invest on research to reduce our dependence on conventional energy. Mahatma Gandhi had said that mother Earth has everything to fulfill our needs but not for our greed. We should follow this Gandhian principle to save our mother Earth, Das added.
Urban planner Piyush Ranjan Rout said the capital city of Bhubaneswar needs immediate measures to tackle the scorching heat during the summer. “It would be difficult to live in Bhubaneswar if we were requiring ACs for around nine months in a year. We should create green cover in the place of adding more number of ACs in our city,” he added.