Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia- 2016/04/21

As the world prepares to celebrate International Earth Day, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says the planet is losing at least 15 billion trees a year because many of them are being cut down.

The declaration of 22 April as International Earth Day is an acknowledgement that Earth and its ecosystems provide its inhabitants with life and sustenance.

It recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity.

CSIR’s Reyhana Mahomed says planet earth is in danger.

“The recent El Nino that we experienced last year, people are walking around and telling you that ‘wow, I’ve never felt so hot in my life’, they are 100% correct, December 2015 was the hottest month recorded in South Africa, so that can already show you how bad things are.”

Mahomed says the climate patterns are changing and necessary steps must be taken to plant indigenous trees.

“CSIR hydro-scientist have proved that indigenous tree species tend to use less water than fast-growing introduced tree species from other countries.”

To combat the loss of trees The Earth Day Network (EDN) is aiming to plant 7.8 billion trees by 2020 to honour their 50th anniversary which can be translated to a tree for every person on the planet.

The theme for this year’s Earth Day is ‘Trees on Earth’.

Listen To The File Report Below:

Podcast- Plant A Tree This Earth Day

Twitter: @thedabhelia

(Edited By Faizel Patel)