28th July World Nature Conservation Day Earth Overshoot Day

World Nature Conservation Day is an annual event held on July 28th. This day stresses the need for preserving a healthy environment and natural resources to maintain a stable and healthy society. Saving plants and animals that face the threat of extinction is one of the primary goals of World Nature Conservation Day. Also, the celebrations emphasise keeping the various components of nature such as flora, fauna, energy resources, soil, water, and air intact. In addition, World Nature Conservation Day underlines the need for preserving the environment for future generations. We are therefore tasked with the need to leave a healthy planet for those coming after us to enjoy.

We are observing Earth Overshoot Day also on July 28th. This is a serious day for all of us to reconsider our way of life and usage of natural resources. Our mother Earth can only regenerate resources at a finite rate. But we are utilising it at more than this rate every year. Earth Overshoot Day was introduced to raise awareness about the resource shortage that we are creating with our modern lifestyle. Once the regeneration of resources is at its limit, we exploit what is left of the resources, making the situation even worse. Andrew Simms started the idea behind Earth Overshoot Day to track the ecological resources and services we use from nature.

How interesting that these two are celebrated on the same day. Really, I guess they want the same thing from us, but the wording of Earth Overshoot Day is much more alarming than World Nature Conservation Day. Watching how much curriculum input the students I teach get on sustainability, recycling, climate change etc it is little wonder that they are becoming so anxious so young.

I always think that sharing a picture book as a provocation for discussion is a 'more gentle' way of introducing a topic than facts, figures, dioramas and film clips, because usually they are in a safe setting with an adult they trust and who they know will listen to their concerns and answer their questions.

Last week at school I read Jasmine Seymour's new book to some classes. The CBCA Book Week posters' artwork is hers and the birds and butterflies come from this book. The endpapers are exquisite, depicting Australian flora. I was very surprised to see that my young students had so little knowledge of the flora depicted. They thought the waratahs were roses and couldn't name the flannel flowers despite the fact that so much of the harbour foreshore near their homes has abundant stretches of them along the  bushwalks. I have decorated the library for this term using gum leaves, Australian birds and butterflies, but now I feel the need to share pictures of more flora with them. Time for Plantastic! and any other book that features Australian flora.

 

The shortlist for the Environment Book Awards was published recently. The Wilderness Society who initiated this award and promotes the books' use has as its aim:

We think growing a love of nature in young people is fundamental to becoming a society that values and protects Australia’s unique landscapes, oceans and wildlife.

So on this day, the 28th any of this shortlist would be appropriate reading.