On World Environment Day 2020 there was an interactive session with senior journalist, Miss Afia Salam, top environmentalist, Dr. Shahid Amjad, & the Manager Partnerships & External Affairs – UNAP, Miss Kulsoom Siddiqui on how to plant trees and take care of the environment.
They discussed how human actions, including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture, and acceleration of climate change, have pushed nature beyond its limit. It would take 1.6 Earths to meet the demands that humans make of nature each year. If we continue on this path, biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity, including the collapse of food and health systems.
The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life. Today, it is estimated that, globally, about one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from diseases caused by coronaviruses; and about 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning that they are transmitted to people by animals.