Join SocEnv Campaign to restore ecosystems

1st June 2021

This year’s SocEnv World Environment Day theme is Ecosystem Restoration, a topic of urgent importance. Check out their website hub for resources and inspiration on actions everyone can take to help restore our ecosystems.

In the UK and beyond, the Society for the Environment champions World Environment Day – a UN initiative which takes place on the 5th June each year. The initiative provides a platform for global education and inspiration; shining attention on a particularly pressing environmental theme.
 
This year, the global theme for World Environment Day is Ecosystem Restoration, as part of the launch of the UN’s ‘Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’ (2021 – 2030). Earlier this year, Chartered Environmentalists gave their insight into why ecosystem restoration is such a timely choice of theme.
 
You might think that ecosystem restoration is a problem only for global institutions and Governments. Yet that couldn’t be further from the truth. Imagine if we are able to increase our connection with nature, especially in cities, and through this repair and restore all our ecosystems, all around the world… That is our vision in the run-up to World Environment Day (5th June), throughout the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 - 2030) ... and beyond!  
 
To deliver this vision, this year SocEnv have continued to work alongside key partners Canary Wharf Group, CIEEM, IEMA, Siemens, Skanska, and Wilmott Dixon, in developing the Ecosystem Restoration Hub. Here you will find inspirational resources on the importance of restoring our ecosystems and what we can all do to help!
 
Sarah Jones CEnv, Environment Manager at Siemens, said: “We all have a role to play in ecosystem restoration, be that from an individual or organisational perspective. At Siemens we work with the Wildlife Trusts to encourage our teams to engage with the natural world through volunteering and participating in #30DaysWild. An enhanced relationship with nature will help us all play a part in delivering on the goals set out by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.”
 
Martin Ballard CEnv, Group Head of Environment at Willmott Dixon Holdings, said: “Restoring habitat, allowing wild spaces in estate corners or strips, and aligning landscape planting with indigenous species, not only improves ecosystems within built environments and the surrounding natural networks, but improves mental headspace, wellbeing, and resilience. The need for urgent action is never more apparent following the successive weather events and pandemics of recent times, and we must urgently offset urban heat island impact, mitigate flood risk, and support ecological continuity. Working together, we can live in harmony with nature and integrate built areas with ecosystems.”

Sarah Mukherjee, CEO of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) said: “In a crucial year for environmental decisions, with the UK's Environment Bill returning to Parliament and our hosting of COP26, we must mark World Environment Day by urging global leaders to take immediate action to retain and restore our ecosystems. We simply cannot afford to lose any more of our natural resources and we must learn to live in ecological harmony with our ecosystems by protecting and preserving them.
Our members are working to ensure sustainability and best environmental practice is at the heart of everything we do to protect and preserve our environment.”

Dougal Driver CEnv, Vice Chair of Society for the Environment, said: “Environmental professionals must lead the way through action and inspiration, in order to restore the ecosystems around the globe that have been degraded. Passion can effect change but when coupled with knowledge and expertise then that change becomes far more sustainable. I urge all environmental professionals to set a personal goal to change one thing that will help restore an ecosystem, whether achieved by influencing another person or Institution, or physically changing something on the ground. Every action, backed by knowledge, can make a real difference.”


To find out more about what you can do to restore our ecosystems and how you can encourage others to do the same, visit socenv.org.uk/ecosystemrestoration today!
 
- ENDS -