World Environment Day, June 5, “Go Wild for Wildlife”
An environmental Sabbath for Sunday June 5 is encouraged with the World Environment Day “Go Wild for Wildlife” theme focus on stopping the illegal trade in wildlife.
World
Environment Day (WED) is the biggest annual international event for
environmental action.
You are
asked to do what you can to conserve and protect endangered, threatened, and
imperiled “iconic” species, such as elephants, rhinos, tigers, sea turtles, and
others.
Smuggling of
elephant ivory tusks, rhino horns and tiger parts, for example, feeds
corruption and fuels organized crime, robbing future generations of their
natural heritage.
The
biological diversity of our natural resources needs to be supported and
enhanced. Within the U.S.A. concerns are
raised about honeybees, monarch butterflies, wolves, ocean life and fisheries,
and the threats to wild habitats that support bald eagles, bison, black bears,
grizzlies, moose, frogs, song birds, salmon, etc.
The World
Environment Day (every year, everywhere, every one) web site is excellent. Its downloads and toolkit of facts and
figures about the illegal trade in wildlife, action proposals and benefits, is
superb and can be adopted for other yearly proposals such as for Earth Day,
Feast of St. Francis, a day devoted to the blessings of/for animals, etc.
The WED logo
is a colorful fingerprint within a circle representing the diversity of people
and ecosystems, thus a representation of individuality and collective personal
actions that equal a force for change.
At the WED
home page http://web.unep.org/wed/2016
also see the A-Z link in the lower left-hand corner.
A
theological reference to be considered is Isaiah 11:6-7. That biblical passage served as inspiration
for the painting of “The Peaceable Kingdom” (1826) by 19th century
Pennsylvania Quaker folk artist Edward Hicks (1780-1849).
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