WWF South Africa launches drive to encourage South Africans to build back better

Raging wildfires, severe flooding as well as droughts, and increasing levels of biodiversity loss are just some of the crises that have become more frequent due to a warming climate.

Then there is Covid-19, the new coronavirus that follows a number of diseases that have emerged in recent decades that originated in animals. Increasing evidence shows that humanity’s overexploitation of nature is one of the factors behind the spread of new diseases.

WWF South Africa is encouraging people to stand up for nature, calling everyone to lend a hand ‘For Nature. For Us.’

As part of this drive, WWF South Africa is offering supporters a chance to reconnect with nature by winning two nights for two people at Thakadu River Lodge in Madikwe Game Reserve. To be eligible, participants should make a small donation of between R100 and R500, to ‘adopt’ vital conservation projects, among them the fight for clean air and plastic-free oceans, as well as rhino conservation.

Justin Smith, head of business development at WWF South Africa said, “Ecosystems are declining rapidly because of what we are doing as humans. If we continue to encroach on the natural world at our current rate, our quality of life will be severely reduced, and the lives of future generations will be threatened. We must act now if we want to continue to have access to all the ‘free’ services that nature offers us – from the food we eat to the air we breathe. That is why we are calling on society for support so that we can continue to do the vital work that we do every day in order to safeguard our future.”

The population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles has seen an alarming average drop of 68 per cent since 1970. As per the findings of WWF’s Living Planet Report 2020, people’s relationship with nature is broken. Biodiversity, the rich diversity of life on earth, is being lost at an alarming rate and the impacts of this loss on our health and way of life are mounting.

The UN has dedicated the 2020s as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Conserving and restoring our ecosystems and the services they provide should be seen as a fundamental part of maintaining human and planetary health.

“We need to value nature as the indispensable resource that it is. We rely on the natural world for our daily survival. It is possible for us to stabilise and actively reverse the damage we have done through more ambitious conservation efforts and by making fundamental changes to the way we live,” concluded Dr Morné du Plessis, CEO of WWF South Africa.

For more information on WWF South Africa or to make a donation, visit the website. The competition will run from 28 April to 5 June 2021.