World Environment Day

Jun 05, 2024

Today, 5^th of June, marks world Environment Day, a day to bring people together, to recognise all our roles in protecting and restoring our planet! Every year has a focus, and this year is looking at land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. It is being hosted in Saudi Arabia and has the slogan: “Our land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration.” – catchy, right? Here is a video to explain a bit more.

This year’s World Environment Day is trying to tackle three main issues: Land Degradation, Desertification and Droughts. Land degradation, the loss of productive soils, is a huge issue globally, and covers nearly the size of India across our plant, affecting 40% of the world’s population. Desertification is then the next step along where land that could have once been used for growing plants has turned into desert. And finally, due to higher temperatures droughts have increased in their duration by 29% from 2000, which then causes even more land degradation and desertification! EEK!

These all affect the poorest who live in naturally hot climates, by impacting their health, ability to grow crops, and water and food security. If they are allowed to go on, we could see:

By 2030 - 135 million people migrating away from their homes
By 2040 - food production dramatically falling and food prices to rise by 30%
By 2050 - droughts impacting nearly 75% of the world’s population

So then, what is causing all of this? Big question, and if you want to really get stuck in click here to go the World Environment Day website and find out more, but we’ll try and give you an answer. Basically, and we’re sure you guessed it, but it’s climate change. Now there are many causes for climate change, from using fossil fuels, agriculture and transportation, but one of the biggest is deforestation. This reduces our carbon sinks which are the planet’s ability to absorb and hold the carbon from the atmosphere.

So, what can we do then? World leaders, politicians and decision makers are all being asked to increase nature restoration to save our future. According to World Environment Day:

"Ecosystem conservation and restoration could help counter climate change and climate-related disasters by reviving the full capacity of forests, peatlands, drylands, wetlands and rivers to store carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and absorb disaster impacts."

Here at the Cheeky Panda, we have a phrase – Every Pawprint Matters. This means a lot to us, but one of its key points is to look after out beautiful planet. Through using bamboo for our toilet paper, we are reducing the need for deforestation and saving our world’s precious forests. Also, through using bamboo we are picking the sustainable option as it grows 3x faster than trees, produce 35% more oxygen, and absorbs 30% more carbon! You can find out more about Every Pawprint Matters here.

So, this 5^th of June, please head to the World Environment Day website to find out more about their events and what you can do to get involved. And remember! Each of us has a role to play in saving our planet, we just need to do it one step (pawprint) at a time!