Dear Friends of AEWA,

Human beings are part of the web of life. We are part of what we have come to call biodiversity – the wide variety of animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms that make up our natural world. And yet, in the relatively short time our species has existed, we have had a significant and unfortunately predominantly negative impact on the planet’s climate, its species, and ecosystems. As part of this web of life, human beings have also been benefitting from the huge number of services that nature provides and the erosion of these will have an increasingly devastating effect on our lives.

I could not agree more with the slogan of this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity: “We’re part of the solution.” COVID-19 has reminded us how much we depend on nature and on international cooperation to address the challenges the world is facing today. The ongoing fight against the pandemic, climate change and biodiversity loss are all global problems which require us to work together as a community of nations and people living on one planet.

The coronavirus crisis has led many of us to reflect on humanity’s relationship with the natural world and to recognize that this relationship is now seriously out of balance, with dire consequences for our health, wealth, everyday lives and continued well-being.  We have taken for granted for too long the benefits that we derive from nature and are beginning to pay the price of neglect, overexploitation and lack of respect for the environment.  World Environment Day, with its slogan “Time for Nature”, is a timely wake-up call for us to ensure a sustainable future, where we support nature so that it can support us.