World Wildlife Day with Theme:
On March 3rd, the whole world is celebrating World Wildlife Day to resolve the issues surrounding wildlife. The UNESCO World Heritage List includes many forest areas in all different climate zones (boreal forests, temperate forests, subtropical forests, and woodlands, tropical forests, mangrove forests). Ranging in size from 18 hectares to 5.8 million hectares. In addition, the List includes forest sites with the most emblematic forest animals in the world.
This year the theme decided by the United Nations is “Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet”, as a way to highlight the central role of forests, forest species, and ecosystems services in sustaining the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally, and particularly of Indigenous and local communities with historic ties to forest and forest-adjacent areas. World Wildlife Day with Theme 2021 aligns with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their wide-ranging commitments to alleviating poverty, ensuring sustainable use of resources, and conserving life on land.
Indigenous peoples and local communities are at the forefront of the symbiotic relationship between humans and forests, forest-dwelling wildlife species, and the ecosystem services they provide. Roughly 28% of the world’s land surface is currently managed by indigenous peoples, including some of the most ecologically intact forests on the planet. These spaces are not only central to their economic and personal well-being, but also to their cultural identities so the World Wildlife Day with Theme 2021 is given.
To mark the occasion of World Wildlife Day, India’s sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik created sand art, shared the pictures of the same, and wrote, “On #WorldWildlifeDay My SandArt at Puri beach in Odisha with the message We love our wildlife.”
