According to Earth Day Network, this year’s Earth Day is dedicated to protecting species and raising awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction. Earth Day was first celebrated in the US in the 1970s, and went global by the 1990s — it is now celebrated in at least 192 countries. The idea of commemorating such a day was propounded by Gaylord Nelson, a US senator from Wisconsin. Nelson, who had been a witness to the devastation caused by an enormous oil spill in Santa Barbara, California in 1969, felt the urgency of the matter.
More than 1 billion people from 192 countries now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.
Bulgaria is one of the first countries to join the International Day of the Earth Day since 1990. Blagovest Sendov is represented in the International Organizing Committee for the celebration. He formed a National Earth Day Committee.
On April 22, 1992, the President of the Republic of Bulgaria, Zhelyu Zhelev, signed the oath in the name of the Earth. More than 30,000 Bulgarian children are signatories under the Earth Declaration of Living Terms. The document was submitted to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.
Each year, the Earth Day Network is focusing on a topical theme related to the conservation of the planet. The motto of the campaign this year is “Protect our species”.
Here is the call of the Earth Day Network:
“In nature, nothing exists alone.”
— Rachel Carson, 1962
Nature’s gifts to our planet are the millions of species that we know and love, and many more that remain to be discovered. Unfortunately, human beings have irrevocably upset the balance of nature and, as a result, the world is facing the greatest rate of extinction since we lost the dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago. But unlike the fate of the dinosaurs, the rapid extinction of species in our world today is the result of human activity.
The unprecedented global destruction and rapid reduction of plant and wildlife populations are directly linked to causes driven by human activity: climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, trafficking and poaching, unsustainable agriculture, pollution and pesticides to name a few. The impacts are far reaching.
If we do not act now, extinction may be humanity’s most enduring legacy. Here are some quick facts on the current wave of extinction and additional information about this problem here.
All living things have an intrinsic value, and each plays a unique role in the complex web of life. We must work together to protect endangered and threatened species: bees, coral reefs, elephants, giraffes, insects, whales and more.
The good news is that the rate of extinctions can still be slowed, and many of our declining, threatened and endangered species can still recover if we work together now to build a united global movement of consumers, voters, educators, faith leaders, and scientists to demand immediate action.
Earth Day Network is asking people to join our Protect our Species campaign. Our goals are to:
- Educate and raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
- Achieve major policy victories that protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats.
- Build and activate a global movement that embraces nature and its values.
- Encourage individual actions such as adopting plant based diet and stopping pesticide and herbicide use.