Rapid development and industrialization across the world have degraded the environment and ecology at an unprecedented speed and now mankind has felt fear of its peaceful existence if not addressed these changes in the natural ecosystem well within time in the mission mode.
Thus, to recognize this urgent need to restore the damaged ecosystem, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration has been run by the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It will end up by 2030 parallelly with the deadline to achieve the Sustainable development Goals (SDG).
Under the initiative, ambitious programmes with promising and inspirational instances across the 23 countries have been identified that will drive the way for natural restoration and exemplify how to make peace with nature to save biodiversity for a sustainable future on this beautiful planet.
the countries have pledged to restore 1-billion-hectare land and coasts to revive the natural ecosystem. To recognize the efforts, recently UN has announced the first ten World Restoration Flagships across the ecosystem at COP15 to the Convention of Biodiversity in Montreal.
Namami Gange, India’s flagship programme to rejuvenate India’s river ecosystem has also made its place in the list of these top ten flagships. The global recognition will make the Namami Gange programme receive financial and technical support from the UN to accelerate the efforts of conserving the ecosystem of the river Ganga. It includes improvement of river water quality, increase in the population of Dolphins, Turtles, etc and afforestation at the river basins that give fresh life to the 2500 flora and fauna species in its more than 8 billion km2 basin.
The recognition also ratifies the fact that a healthy ecosystem is important for a happy life. Better production levels along with better nutrition and a clean environment are paramount for all. These initiatives will promote further action by the people and will aim to prevent, halt and reverse the continuing degradation of the natural ecosystem collaboratively.
These efforts will give support to the global fight against climate change, poverty elimination, biodiversity conservation and mass extinction of natural flora and fauna, etc. It will also lead the world to become a beautiful place to live for the coming generations by motivating others.