Environment in Brazil
© UNESCO/Edson Fogaça
- Javari Valey, Amazon forest, Brazil
Economic growth has led to an increasing demand for natural and mineral resources, as well as intensifying impacts which result from unsustainable extractive and production practices.
These practices have put a set of dynamics and natural systems processes at risk, thus compromising the range of services that they provide being altered or degraded in different regions of the country and around the world. Conflicts of interest and views over how biodiversity and land should be used are associated to this intense exploration.
Aspects that may reverse the growing degradation of environmental assets are incentives given to green economies and generating employment and income associated to maintaining environmental services to protect natural areas.
World Environment Day
© UNESCO/Dom João
The United Nations, aware that the protection and improvement of the human environment is a major issue, which affects the well-being of peoples and economic development throughout the world, designated 5 June as World Environment Day. The celebration of this day provides us with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises and communities in preserving and enhancing the environment. Since it began in 1974, it has grown to become a global platform for public outreach and positive environmental action.
The theme for 2018, “Beat Plastic Pollution,” is a call to action for all of us to come together to combat one of the great environmental challenges of our time. The theme invites us all to consider how we can make changes in our everyday lives to reduce the heavy burden of plastic pollution on our natural places, our wildlife – and our own health.
All year long, in Biosphere Reserves around the world, communities are developing local solutions to improve the relationship between people and their environments, with the support of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere programme (MAB).
