World Wildlife Day

Today, March 3rd is celebrated as "World Wildlife Day."

Wild life, which we visit and observe in national parks, biosphere reserves and wildlife sanctuaries, is not just for our fascination. Wildlife consists of all the flora (plants) and fauna (animals) of this planet and is a prerequisite for balanced food chains, food webs and ecosystems. To celebrate our majestic but humble wildlife, the United Nations officially chose March 3rd as World Wildlife Day in 2013. From there onwards, every year World Wildlife Day is celebrated to create awareness about wildlife with the help of a special theme.

The aim of having a theme is to sensitise the world with different dimensions of wildlife conservation- be it habitat protection, ecosystem restoration or forests and livelihoods creation.

The theme for the year 2023 is "Partnerships for wildlife conservation." 

https://wildlifeday.org/en 

Partnerships can play a vital role in creation of sustainable earth for humans and natural flora-fauna in their respective habitats. 

In accordance with the theme, recent developments like wildlife corridors or bridges can be considered as good examples of 'partnership'. The Indian government announced construction of five such wildlife bridges across the upcoming Delhi-Mumbai expressway. Read here. Construction of such wildlife corridors is a progressive step towards a balanced ecosystem.

Such partnerships should not only be for government agencies, or national/ international organisations. Partnerships to protect the wildlife relatives can be at individual/community levels too and for this there is a need to educate the community about protecting the wildlife for the ultimate benefit to the human race. Lately, there are many news about wild animals invading human habitats, not in villages only, but in upscale metropolitan cities too. But why are animals heading towards towns and cities? Let's try to find an answer through a video "Kinara" by Wildlife Trust of India:

So, the answer about wild animal infiltration into human localities must have certainly been understood by the above video. 

Another aspect of wildlife conservation is "protection of flora." Often, wildlife is just considered as protection of our wild creatures whereas the protection of wild plant species is ignored. Flora and Fauna are actually inseparable and jointly create an ecological balance. Destruction of forests and natural verdure leads to habitat destruction of large animals to small insects and also depletes the human race of plants which are of medicinal, agricultural and economic importance.

'Partnerships' is an apt theme to enlighten the fact that biodiversity conservation is actually a collective effort. Though the issues may be innumerable, but, billions of human minds, in partnership, can create billions of avenues to create a happy and sustainable Earth, not only for themselves, but for the generations to come. The annual days like this are actually like reminders to the human race, to act, before it's too late.