More than half of the world's wildlife species are in decline. 15% are threatened with extinction. Native woodland covers only 6% of our land. Wildlife populations have have decreased by an average of 69% since 1970. But, nature can heal itself if it has the time and space in which to do that.
The basic problem arises because people are becoming more and more disconnected from nature. We are cutting down forests, exhausting our soil, overfishing and polluting our seas making huge "dead zones", destroying peatbogs, salt marsh and species rich heathlands.
We need to become aware of the situation. Then we will want to help. Then we will rewild and reinstate natural pocesses. Great Big Green Week is encoragement to develop that connection.
Let us celebrate farmers for they feed us.
Let us celebrate bee keepers for they enable us to enjoy sweet, delicious honey.
Let us celebrate everyone who helps animals - who looks after hedgehogs, bats, owls and those who feed the birds.
Let us celebrate everyone who plants wildflowers and who do No Mow May.
The British have traditionally always loved nature. Help everyone develop a deeper and deeper love.
CoP15 - The UN Biodiversity Conference
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has a mission to inspire, inform and enable nations to live in harmony with nature.
UNEP is trying to halt and reverse the collapse of ecosystems. The natural world is under assault from:
One million animal and plant species face dying out, many within decades, in what many conservationists have described as the "sixth mass extinction". Humanity's destruction of the natural world is rebounding on people - not only in economic losses but in hunger, disease, and decline of wellbeing.
Humans depend on nature to survive. From water purification, pollination, carbon storage and production of food to the aesthetic and cultural values that nature provides. Deforestation, land clearance and agriculture are responsible for around 25% of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
Cop15 focussed on a "30 x 30" strategy to protect a third of the world's land and marine areas by the end of the decade in order to reverse the damage, as opposed to the previous 17% of land and 10% of marine areas. The final "Global Biodiversity Framework" was designed to tackle pesticide use and vast plastic pollution and also to cut the rates of invasive species.