Our ecosystems are facing aggression

UNESCO has already included several parts of the Himalayas: the Great Himalayan National Park, Nanda Devi National Park, Khangchendzonga National Park, Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, Sagarmatha National Park, Chitwan National Park, and the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas in its World Heritage Sites for their ecosystem biodiversity and natural heritage. However, despite their significant role in keeping our planet not only habitable and sustaining it but also alive, our Himalayan ecosystems continue to face exploitation, encroachment, and pollution by our human activities. 

Why must we care?

Unless we take responsibility to act with conscience towards the Himalayan ecosystem, as well as other ecosystems, these ecosystems will not be able to keep our common home, the Earth, habitable and thriving. Pushed beyond its resilience, our Earth will no longer be able to sustain us and our activities to support our well-being. The climate emergency and the pandemic are signs that this balance has been upset. It is of great urgency, therefore, that we act together and responsibly towards our ecosystems. 

What must we do?

We the undersigned, therefore, call on the United Nations to take all such measures to appeal to the responsibility and conscience of governments of the nations and states, particularly those that are home to the Himalayas and those contributing to the climate crisis to cause them to:

1. recognise the Himalayas for their role in supporting the greater community of life, maintaining ecological integrity of the region and their significant contribution towards keeping our common home, shared with the greater community of life, habitable and thriving;
2. recognise that their wilful acts in the region increasingly disturb the resilience, sustainability and the ability of the Himalayan ecosystem to contribute to keeping our planet habitable and thriving;
3. commit themselves to show restraint of human activity that is accelerating the environmental and climate crisis, keeping it below the current levels, and to strive to express humility towards the greater community of life in, not just the Himalayan, but all our ecosystems by allowing the natural processes of resilience and evolution to be untouched by human acts;
4. use the Principles of the Earth Charter as an ethical guidance in their responsibility towards our planet and its ecosystems.
    

Signed on the World Environment Day on 5th of June, 2021