Yesterday was World Nature Conservation Day, which is celebrated yearly on July 28. It’s a day that was developed to recognize that a healthy environment is important to a stable world. The number one reason for this day is to call attention to the need to conserve endangered plants and animals, but it’s also a day to consider conservation of the entire environment. You may ask why any of this is all that important. There are actually quite a few reasons that conservation should be important to each and every one of us. First and foremost is the consideration of what we are leaving for future generations. And I refer not only to future generations of people, but also to the future generations of all living things. As more and more kinds of life face extinction, it becomes increasingly urgent that humans focus their attention on conservation.

The second reason that conservation has become urgent is that it’s necessary to preserve this world. Climate change is already having serious impacts all over the world, and those impacts will only continue to get worse unless we step up and reduce the harm that we are doing with carbon emissions, pollution, and habitat destruction. If we destroy this world, we destroy our home, and we have no other. Nature itself is one of our best weapons against global warming, and through conservation efforts we not only help individual species, but we help the entire world.

Finally, conservation is essential to maintaining human health. As we destroy more and more of the natural environment we break down barriers between humans and domestic animals and wild plants and animals. This leads to new diseases and diseases from wild populations spreading to people and livestock. It’s also important to remember that many of our medications like antibiotics, cancer therapies, and antiparasitics come from nature. If we lose the plants and animals that these medications are derived from, we also lose access to these important products.

Hopefully, events like World Nature Conservation Day can help more people to understand how dependent all life is on a healthy environment. Part of a healthy environment is biodiversity, so it is vital that we conserve endangered species and take better care of the ones that aren’t yet endangered.