15
Life on Land
What’s the Goal? This goal covers everything from ensuring forests are managed sustainably to combating desertification, halting and reversing land degradation to preserving our biodiversity. Basically, help our planet flourish so that it’s the natural food chain that keeps us on edge during David Attenborough documentaries, not seeing the devastating effects of humanity on animal habitats. Human activity has altered almost 75 per cent of the earth’s surface, which is putting our environment and its wildlife under so much stress. Around 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction – many within decades – according to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service. We need to sit up and ensure that are sharing and caring for our planet, or the impact will result in broken eco-systems, zoonotic diseases, extinction and higher emissions to off-setting.
31 Green Zine 2021
Written by Emma Joyce Illustration by Beth Hammond
What can you do? • Be conscious when making purchases. • Avoid unsustainable palm oil in food items. • Opt for zero-waste products and avoid unnecessary packaging, paper and other materials that put a strain on our land. • Support sustainable farming and go meat and dairy free where you can. • Plant trees! Loads of apps, websites, even businesses now support tree planting, which means that you can plant trees daily for free! We love apps like Tree App and Forest App, as well as the browser Ecosia, which plants trees when you search. • Support biodiversity and wildlife, local and global. You can do this by making your garden more bug and bird friendly, donating to charities that work on wildlife conservation and speaking up against deforestation!
Sustainable Development Goals