Club of Rome call for nature protection on World Environment Day
On World Environment Day, 5th June 2020, the Club of Rome called on governments to recognise the dependency of humans on nature. They said that we must, as societies, reassess our relationship with nature in order to avoid future devastating events – pandemics or other natural disasters. This requires ‘rethinking our consumption and production patterns, strengthening the sustainable use of resources, and prioritizing investing in the protection of nature to help boost global economies’. They highlighted that the economic benefit compared to the actual cost of conserving nature is at least 100:1, and hence called for a nature-centred recovery to COVID-19. They gave one specific request: the preservation and effective management of at least 30% of Earth’s land and oceans by 2030. In 2016, about 15% of land and 4% of oceans were designated protected areas, and only a fraction of these are effectively managed, with a third influenced by intensive human activity.
Read the letter here.
