World Wildlife Day 2022: Theme, history and significance
The ecological balance of the world depends upon plants and animals as they contribute to the generic, social, economic, scientific, educational as well as welfare of mankind, adding to the aim of sustainable development. Keeping this in mind, World Wildlife Day is commemorated every year on 3rd March to celebrate the unique forms of wild flora and fauna across the planet. The day is also important as it creates awareness about wildlife conservation and encourages people to control the various factors that directly or indirectly impacts them. Here’s everything else to know about this day.
Theme of World Wildlife Day 2022
Like every year, this year too, World Wildlife Day has a new and unique theme, which is ‘Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration.’ The theme has been specifically chosen to emphasise on the need of conservation of certain critically endangered species.
World Wildlife Day 2022 will also focus on forest-based livelihoods and promote forest wildlife management models and practices in order to ensure that wildlife and humans can co-exist in harmony.
History of World Wildlife Day
On 20th December 2013, as part of 68th session, the United Nations General Assembly declared 3rd March as World Wildlife Day. This was done to commemorate the fact that 3rd March happens to be the day of adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). This was done way back in 1973 to ensure that global trade doesn’t affect the survival of other species. Since then, World Wildlife Day has been widely observed globally.
Significance of World Wildlife Day
At present, more than 8400 species of wild animals and plants are categorised as endangered, while approximately 30000 are vulnerable or are on the verge of extinction. Some estimates suggest that a million species have already been extinct till date. For these reasons, World Wildlife Day is significant as it gives the United Nations the opportunity to promote conservation of threatened species. This, in turn, fulfils their Sustainable Development Goals numbers 1, 2, 12, 13, 14 and 15. Through this day, the United Nations and other global wildlife conservation groups aims to promote sustainable ways of human survival through judicious use of resources that doesn’t destroy the natural habitats of wildlife, instead helps in their conservation on land and water.
How will World Wildlife Day 2022 be celebrated?
World Wildlife Day will be celebrated through global discussions and conferences in order to find ways to conserve the highly threatened wild plants and animals and in turn implement them. On this day, debates will be held all across the globe regarding the status of conservation and the emergency need to preserve the fate of these critically endangered wildlife. As part of these events, efforts will be initiated to restore their original habitats and ecosystems and reduce destructive repercussions of human actions on wildlife.