The fierce urgency of NOW – why faith, spiritual and indigenous leaders are pivotal for restoration.

A blog from Musonda Mumba, Chief of the UN Environment Programme's Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit

A priest. A Sikh. A Rabbi. An Indigenous Leader. A Singer. A Neuroscientist. A Reverend. A UN Diplomat. A Poet. A Muslim leader. A Buddhist Monk. A Youth. A woman. A man. Humanity.

Lake at the Holy Wisdom Monestary, Madison, Wisconsin (Credit: Loka Initiative)

There are times in life when an invite from a dear old friend and colleague to participate in an event/meeting such as the one I am about to write on needs its own story. I was invited to participate in the launch of the Loka Initiative by Dekila Chungyalpa, a sister friend of mine of Indian origin, whom I met in the early 2000’s while working at WWF International in Switzerland. We were both working for this fantastic conservation organization that in many ways did stimulate a lot of our thinking and gave birth to many ideas by the time we had both left it.

Fast forward nearly 20 years later, we reconnect and she reaches out to me, having seen my tweets, and other social media posts on the UN Decade. In a nutshell – all she said in an email was: Sister – I really would love to see you at the launch of the Loka Initiative which I have set up and we are doing some exciting work. I read up. I was totally blown away and went back to those days in WWF. Dekila was a house on fire, an incredible mind and thought leader – way ahead of her time honestly.

So Loka: "Loka" (लोकः), an ancient Sanskrit term, has many meanings but usually refers to “our world” as the basis for all life. The mission of this initiative is to support faith-led environmental and climate efforts locally and around the world by helping build capacity of faith leaders and culture keepers of indigenous traditions, and by creating new opportunities for projects, partnerships, and public outreach.

As I walked into the launch event on the evening of 28th May in Madison, Wisconsin, having just arrived into the United States of America that afternoon from Kenya, I was in awe. Initial hellos, and random chats with various people in the room I had never met nor interacted with – Dekila was our common denominator. This magnet of a woman through her universal energy, humility, love and kindness attracted us all to this one place: Madison, Wisconsin. 

The two-day discussions that ensued opened up not so new but also new world to me. And I shall elaborate this. The theme of the Loka Symposium was: Faith in action for a flourishing planet. Convening a select group of experts, faith and spiritual leaders, the room had an energy about it that filled the air with the need for change. Quite electric in fact.

Loka Symposium - Madison, Wisconsin, 28-30 May, 2019.

Structured in mini-panel discussions that focused on defined topics, each panel had a mix of members from the audience ranging from experts, faith, youth or spiritual leaders. Each panel discussion was followed by deep dives with further in-depth discussions in small groups. Perhaps to paint the picture a little clearer, the first panel brought together Father Josh Kureethadam, a priest and cosmologist from the Vatican; Prof. Diana Liverman, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lead author and professor at University of Arizona and Prof. Mary Evelyn Tucker from Yale University. The discussions for this panel focused on the topic “Flourishing People, Flourishing Planet” interrogating how human flourishing is defined as a state of self-actualization and fulfilment for all people with an individual right to freedom, happiness and dignity and within the context of holistic well-being of the surrounding family and community.

Community!! REAL interpersonal, human interactions.  This important word was prominent in our discussions with some stimulating questions coming from many participants such as: How are we interacting within our communities to discuss the challenge of climate change? How are we addressing the issue of our collective trauma at such pivotal time in human history? What does it necessitate from an ethical and communal point of view, for mankind to have flourishing spirit and body? How do we understand the intersection between religion and ecology?

Building on community, another panel explored the issue of “The role of religious and indigenous leaders at a time of ecological and climate crisis”. An amazing meeting of minds that brought together Mr. Gary Besaw an indigenous leader from the Menominee Nation (an American Indigenous community close to Lake Michigan) talking about the sacred connection between people and our planet. Mr. Paul Robbins from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin, brought in a whole twist of all creatures great and small, highlighting our responsibility as caretakers to earths biodiversity and ecosystems. Wrapping up the discussion was Reverend Sally Bingham, founder of InterFaith Power and Light from San Francisco, on lessons from InterFaith power and the role of “us” as caretakers of earth.

A discussion on panel on “Finding courage to build tomorrow” further stimulated the group into thinking through issues that related to how communities of faith often engage in social activities, some of which are religious and some secular in nature. Some of the critical questions discussed through this panel asked: how do we find courage to establish or reinforce a shared view of how faith-led environmental activities can emphasize the interconnection between individuals within a group and reinforce positive relationships through environmental and climate action? Can we get a better understanding of why people reject environmental and climate action on an individual level and lack of political will on a policy scale?

The final panel brought together myself (UN Environment – the only UN agency present at this meeting), Prof. Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin and Mingur Rinpoche - a Tibetan teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, Ecocenter founder. We reflected on the role of resilience in building a flourishing planet – from concept to implementation. The wisdom of the Tibetan Monk, Rinpoche, permeated through the group with him sharing insight on concrete ways to build spiritual and faith community – through breathing. It was priceless. Dr. Richard Davidson doing a deep dive as a neuroscientist, reflected on how inner, community and planetary resilience were related and what we could learn from them. He further flagged something that caught my attention on how the role of green spaces in urban spaces have a close correlation to mental health status. I further took the group through the journey of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 – 2030), how it came about, its passing on 1st March by the UN General Assembly as a resolution and accentuating this with my own personal experiences from my home country Zambia. I flagged why this decade would be the most immersive of UN Decades that brought together everyone on the planet to do something about both conserving non-degraded spaces and restoring those that were degraded. This Decade is also aligned with the last 10 years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was actually quite telling as everyone in their interventions prior to mine spoke a lot about restoration and its relevance for Human Wellbeing and why it mattered so much. As the saying goes: There is no stopping an idea whose time has come!! 

Quoting Margate Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

This was indeed an amazing moment in our history and a meeting of MINDS!!!

And so, with the Decade, herein lies some hope for humanity and the power of collective action not only for our sake but also for the other species and life forms we share this planet with. This decade also demonstrates the holistic nature of ecosystems within a landscape. And as such a clear opportunity for even further synergistic work across world. To quote the late Dr Martin Luther King Jnr – this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration seriously merits “The Urgency of Now!” in terms of action.

May the CHANGE begin.

A digital ecosystem for the environment - written by Jillian Campbell & David Jensen

This piece originally appeared on the Thomson Reuters Sustainability blog.

The case for a digital ecosystem for the environment.  Now is the time – a pivotal moment in environmental history.

Working in the environmental field and on natural resource management, we are often in a position where we are making decisions and investing financial and human resources based on assumptions, anecdotal evidence or patchy data. Indeed, according to a recent UN Environment report, 68% of the 93 indicators covering the environmental dimensions of sustainable development cannot be measured due to a lack of data.

The scientific community has concluded that we have about a decade left to fundamentally change the way we consume natural resources and protect the environment. We believe that if we create a digital ecosystem for the environment, we will be able to use data and insights to make better natural resource governance decisions, target our investments and change consumption and production patterns.

This has the potential to transform our social, political and economic systems to achieve sustainable development. The challenge is no longer out there in some distant future – it is happening on our watch – in our lifetime. Now is the time to re-imagine and supercharge environmental governance and public-private partnerships by using big data, frontier technologies and data analytics to target our action and investments.

Today, we have at our fingertips a combination of global environmental data, technologies and data science techniques that have the potential to create insights that can underpin a sustainable future and profoundly transform our relationship to the planet. These include satellites and drones, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, block chain, citizen science and a range of open source software and mobile phone applications.

Our vision is to bring together partners to generate environmental insights that can be used to protect our planet, our prosperity and our global peace. Solutions must be geared to work at a scale, pace and level of incentives that matches the social, economic and technological forces that are leading to environmental decline.

UN Environment has been working with companies, academics, member states and civil society actors through the UN Science Policy Business Forum to envision what a global digital ecosystem for the environment might look like. We had the opportunity to participate in the process and co-author a first flagship discussion paper which was adopted in March 2019 in the margins of the 4th UN Environmental Assembly. For the discussion paper to be transformed into a global road map by 2020, it will require coordinated global action, leadership and trust amongst public and private partners.

Why do we need data?

We cannot manage what we cannot measure. We need to understand if we are on track, as well as assess different trade-offs and model policy options. Available data was a major limiting factor in the recent global modelling of environmental policy options in the 6th Global Environment Outlook. To do this, we need to identify what information is already available, how we can fill information gaps, and stimulate additional data collection by governments, companies, academics and citizens – we need to ensure we have the right information for the right decision.

New data streams and technologies such as open data cubes are offering high resolution spatial data to monitor environmental change over time. It is critically important to not only map negative trends, but also determine where investments are needed in mitigation, management or restoration to fundamentally change those trend lines. We also need data on supply chains, natural capital stocks and carbon intensity to inform financial markets and investors about environmental risks and opportunities linked to companies and their products and services. There is a major transparency benefit to be gained in terms of understanding which companies are contributing to planetary solutions and sustainability and which are not, for example through using blockchain.

How do we engage people and companies?

Using data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to increasingly nudge consumers has the potential to change behaviors. There are already many good examples of innovative ways to “gamify” and reward green and low carbon consumption using fintech and mobile apps. 

Social media has an ever-increasing level of power and influence on attitudes, perceptions and political outcomes, but we need more aggressive strategies to ensure that messages about the environment are based on science and facts, rather than “fake news”. How can social media be leveraged in a more strategic way to direct citizen action towards sustainability? How can people be mobilized to collect data on ecosystems, biodiversity and the state of our environment using crowdsourcing and citizen science? How can we get people living in cities to understand the value and beauty of the natural world in order to take action to protect it? A digital ecosystem for the environment must deliver data and insights in a way that is accessible, open and linked to policy, markets, consumer behaviors and social media.

What are the risks?

In the rush to access data, we should consider the motivation of companies that hold data, their underlying business models and their potential intentions to create software dependency. Currently, much of the big data and technological advancements are held by a handful of companies. This not only creates imbalance in terms of who has access to use data to make decisions, influence markets and determine investments, but it also creates concerns in terms of privacy. As we go forward in partnerships with technology companies, we need to keep the adage in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The same is true in new partnerships with the largest global industrial and energy firms, where transparency and transformation is crucial to achieving our goals for sustainable development. We need to understand where motivations overlap, or conflict, and when partnerships are appropriate.

It is important to also take a step back and ask how this wealth of data and potential power will be governed. If information is power, then those who control access to information and processing capacity hold more power than other stakeholders. It is likely that few nations realize how much potential leveraging this data and processing power will give companies over their economies. It is critical that all countries build their capacity to engage in this new digital economy to avoid the massive risks and asymmetries that could follow if they do not.

As we take forward a vision for building a global digital ecosystem of environmental data, algorithms and insights, three key risks need to be mitigated. First, we need to empower governments and people to be able to understand and use data and to hold the holders of data accountable, as opposed to having data held mostly by a few companies in a few countries. Second, we need mechanisms to ensure the quality and openness of data and algorithms to ensure public trust. Finally, we need legal frameworks to protect individual privacy, data security and intellectual property.

One of the largest governance challenges to address is that national and international regulatory processes move according to very different timelines as compared to technological innovation. As a result, new forms of agile governance are needed. Countries should agree on a basic set of international norms, ethics and values that can guide the development of the technology sector and that can help to ensure it contributes positively to global public goods. A new social contract is also needed between the private and public sectors – where the cost of doing business and the social license to operate is predicated on a basic level of sharing derived data products where they can contribute to a global public good.

How do we get there?

Ensuring that frontier technologies have positive environmental outcomes is in our hands. The future is what we make it. Building a digital ecosystem for the environment that will support the achievement of sustainable development hinges on the following core principles:

• Citizens must be engaged and empowered to use data and information to improve their own lives, communities and environment.
• Countries must create a policy environment that promotes open data, open algorithms, inter-operability and a culture of data integration, use, innovation and governance.
• Public-private partnerships are needed in order to leverage private sector expertise and infrastructure in data science, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, to share data and to promote the use of technology for global public goods.
• The UN should take a leadership role and make a longer-term investment in developing and implementing a vision for a global digital ecosystem for the environment, including new and innovative partnerships with all key actors. The UN also needs to take a more proactive role to promote open data, open source software, interoperability of data, and to provide guidance on which global data sets are the “best available”.

The international community has an important choice to make in how these technologies are used to save lives and livelihoods, respect human rights and protect the planet. Ultimately, the environmental revolution that must be catalyzed by frontier technologies is equally about a revolution in environmental transparency – which actors are leading the way towards a sustainable future, and which continue to adopt practices that undermine life on earth. We as a global community have the power to hold governments and companies accountable and to ensure that leaders create change.  With the right data to make crucial decisions in the decade ahead, we can all be on the right side of human history.

Joining the global transparency revolution - written by Inga Petersen

How can environmental transparency help make mining more sustainable?

Sierra Rutile - Sierra Leone 2011 ©Caroline Thomas/UN Environment

At first sight, ‘sustainable mining’ is the very definition of a contradiction in terms. How can an industry that digs holes in the ground, extracts mineral resources and often leaves significant environmental damage in its wake possibly be associated with sustainable development? And why would an agency like UN Environment, charged with the task of protecting the global environment, associate with the mining sector in the first place?

I work as a senior extractives adviser in UN Environment’s Disasters and Conflicts branch in Geneva. The branch works on disaster risk reduction, carries out strategic assessments of post-conflict environments and conducts research into the role natural resources play as a driver of conflict and opportunity for sustaining peace. During my Masters in International Security I had studied the latter, in particular ‘blood diamonds’ fueling civil war in West Africa and other ‘conflict minerals’ financing armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Artisanal gold mining is impacting landscapes in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2016 ©UN Environment

I first started working in extractive industries governance for Adam Smith International, a development consultancy, followed by a fellowship with the mining and metals team at the World Economic Forum. I managed projects to reform the legislative, regulatory and institutional frameworks governing the mining sector and to facilitate public private cooperation. The aim was to help governments maximize the benefits of resource wealth for their citizens and future generations. I quickly realized that whereas a poorly managed mining sector is a recipe for conflict and environmental disasters, well-managed mining projects can be an important catalyst for sustainable development.

Development considerations aside, mining also plays a critical role in the global transition to a green economy. From the lithium in electric car batteries to the steel needed to build wind turbines to the gold in mobile phones, we depend on mining to provide many of the resources which enable technological progress. Coupled with a circular economy and improved resource efficiency, the sector can help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. So if the global economy and modern human wellbeing depends on mining, how do we make sure local communities and ecosystems don’t pay the price?

UN Environment conducts a community consultation process amongst local men in Umm al Jawasir, Northern state. Community hearings and consultations have been critical components of UN Environment’s assessment work, Sudan 2010 ©UN Environment

At UN Environment, we took a closer look at what drives conflict in the mining sector and noticed that a lack of dialogue and access to information about environmental impacts often contributes to misperceptions, a breakdown of trust and social conflict. One of the largest environmental drivers of conflict relates to water. The International Finance Corporation and the International Council of Mining and Metals have found that 70% of operations of the world’s biggest mining companies are located in water stressed areas. The impacts of climate change, including increasing water scarcity, will only make matters worse. Getting it right is more important than ever before. Whereas a number of global initiatives are already promoting greater transparency in the sector (e.g. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative), environmental transparency is often neglected.

In addition to access to information, local communities are also asking for more inclusive decision making and a meaningful role in monitoring the environmental performance of mining operations. In order to address these needs and enhance development outcomes we started looking towards innovations in communication technologies and the idea of digital disruption. Together with experts at the University of Geneva, the Global Resource Information Database (GRID-Geneva), and the World Bank, UN Environment has developed an online mapping platform to collect the best available data about the impacts of the extractive sector, independently assess the integrity of the data and help analyze and visualize the information to make it accessible to the broader public.

The head of Kasai Occidental’s Mining Division lays out a concession map showing the whole province demarcated into mining blocks, 2010 ©UN Environment

The MAP-X platform can be tailored to address a broad range of issues: We have pilot-tested it in the Democratic Republic of Congo to link payment and production data with the development and environmental performance of the mining sector; in Afghanistan to map and assess drivers of conflict at the project level; and in Nigeria to serve as a platform for environmental monitoring of the oil spill clean-up in Ogoniland. Going forward, we are looking to support countries in monitoring mercury reduction in the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector, enable territorial planning in post-conflict countries and support participatory monitoring by integrating community data. We hope to deploy MAP-X as part of our planned work in Colombia.

Large scale industrial mining dredge near Condoto, Colombia (abandoned) 2017 ©David Jensen/UN Environment

So far, we have had extremely positive feedback on the prototype platform. Over 100 World Bank staff and partners turned up for a live demonstration back in October. We also published our first blog posts on GOXI and the EITI websites that together received over 1000 views.

The potential of the mining sector to be a positive agent for change is substantial but more transparency about its impacts is needed to allow for evidence-based policy and decision making. Building on UN Environment’s impartiality and the organization’s vast experience in environmental stewardship, we have a unique chance to make a difference on the ground and I am inspired by the opportunities that lie ahead.

If you’d like to learn more about our work you can either visit the www.mapx.org or view our demo videos.  

Connecting with the environment - written by Lis Bernhardt

My passions have always naturally revolved around conflict resolution, human rights and international relations, not the environment per se. I cared about human development, and when I was going to high school and university in the Great Lakes region of the Midwestern United States, the stereotype about people who studied the environment was that they were the “science nerds” who cared more about plants and animals than about people.

There were a couple of incidents early on, however, which opened my eyes to how interrelated human development and the environment are. First, as an undergrad at university in Chicago, I was involved in a community action to help a high school in an underprivileged area write a proposal to the city alderman to get more funding for their school. The school wanted more resources to help its students, who were behind in test scores. Then we dug a bit deeper and realized where the school was located – on the grounds of a former paint factory. There was lead contamination, which obviously can affect health and concentration; they got funding to test and clean up the soil in addition to other resources. That was one of the first moments where I realized that environmental issues often underlie development issues. 

Another defining moment for me came later, as a graduate student in Geneva, when I was doing research for my Masters thesis on human rights and development issues of an indigenous population in the US. I spent time on their reservation in the Four Corners region. I had gone into the research thinking the issues were about the right to access to education, development, practice their religion and culture. But after witnessing their ties to the land, which was facing environmental and land degradation including severe water scarcity, I realized once again that development problems often have environmental issues at their base – especially in the case of indigenous peoples. I realized you can’t just move these people to a new part of the country, you have to help them solve their problems where they are. In the same way, on a bigger scale, we only have one Earth to live on. I was fascinated, frustrated but also galvanized by this experience.

Shortly thereafter I started work at my first “real job”, for an environmental science organization. This was the early 2000s, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had just been passed. While inspirational and hugely influential, I felt that they had two major drawbacks which I had noticed during my Masters work: first, they didn’t cover people in “rich” countries who were living in developing country conditions (e.g. many indigenous populations), and secondly, they kept environmental and traditional human development issues, wrongly, on separate tracks.

In 2009 I moved from environmental issues in general to freshwater in particular, a topic I find fascinating because it cuts across and ties together all areas of development, including also my traditional loves of conflict resolution and human rights. I was hugely privileged to have been able to be in New York throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of UN-Water’s work to coordinate the UN input to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on water and sanitation. It was a crazy but very exciting time.

Now, with the SDGs, we have finally brought together the environment with social and economic development, and acknowledged their interdependence. It is a wonderful opportunity for UN Environment, and I came to Nairobi in 2016 because I wanted to be part of helping this organization implement these ambitious new goals. In a way, the environment has a lot of work to do to “catch up” with the other areas of sustainable development, which got a 15 year head start with the MDGs. We have to better make the case to show how the environment underpins (or undermines) human development, peace and security.

Looking towards 2030, in the Freshwater Unit we’d like to see UN Environment help countries to monitor and report on targets related to freshwater quality, water resources management and healthy freshwater ecosystems. I’m excited about how technology is likely to help us get a much better understanding of what is happening in the world over the coming years, including the role of small gadgets and citizen scientists. We’ve also been talking to NASA and the European Space Agency. We have UNEP Live, which can show patterns and pictures using Big Data. With maps and time series you can see the changes; you can map where conflicts are and may occur in the future. There is growing understanding of the role that water can play in conflicts (or their prevention) - many believe, for example, that the conflict in Syria leading to mass migrations of people has water at its base. It would be great to bring all this information together to help policymakers understand these connections, help people better manage their water and perhaps even prevent conflicts from flaring up in the first place. 

What’s law got to do with it? Cleaning up the holy Ganga - written by Anjana Varma

My mother is nearly 62 years old. But if you meet her, you will see that she’s got the fiery nature of a young backpacking traveler whose restless strides have taken her the world over. On a recent phone call I had with her, I asked her ‘so where next? Paris? Singapore? What do you want to see?’ She replied, ‘Closer to home, I want to go to Varanasi and do Ganga darshan’. In Hinduism, darshan literally means to have an auspicious sight of a deity or a holy person. It was heartwarming to see that after nearly 30 years of having lived all over the world, nothing held more meaning to her than to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Varanasi, which stands on the banks of perhaps the most sacred river for Hindus, the Ganga (or Ganges).

Aside from the fact that it is a lifeline for nearly 500 million people living along its banks, most Hindus pay homage to the river by taking a dip in the water as a means of atonement, paying respect to their ancestors whose ashes have been released into the water, offering it flowers and clay oil lamps. Small quantities of water from the river are used in rituals, and offered to loved ones for purification. Its ecological, symbolic, and religious importance is undeniable.

Yet today, it flows through the veins of the country as one of the five most polluted rivers of the world.

I spoke to my mother after her trip to Varanasi, which is also one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, and asked her how it went. She was overwhelmed by the beauty, the history, the devotion of people, and the sanctity of the place. However, she was devastated by the pollution she witnessed.

This is why coming across the news that a state court in India had given the Ganga River (and its largest tributary, Yamuna River) the legal status as the ‘first living entity of India’ a few days ago, made me – quite simply – hopeful.

Much like New Zealand court’s ruling giving the Whanganui River a legal status, this too is a landmark judgment with far reaching implications. Giving a river the legal status of a living entity means that, much like people and incorporated companies, it has a right to defend itself. Through court appointed individuals, the river’s ‘rights’ can be represented in court allowing for greater accountability for inaction.

What perhaps often goes unnoticed is the significant role that law plays in the realm of environment and development. As someone who works in the Law Division at UN Environment, I certainly see it, and I am one of its biggest advocates (pun very much intended), as are my colleagues (it’s akin to preaching to the choir).

I would like to give you an example of the power of law and institutions: last year, a 16-year-old student filed a request under the Right to Information Act – which requires the government to respond to a citizen’s query within 30 days – to know the status of a major cleaning programme for the Ganga River. Much to her dismay and many, many others, it became public knowledge that despite millions of rupees being allocated to the cleanup – in reality – very little has been done. Law enables that transparency and accountability of the government to its citizens. When it comes to the environment, now more than ever, this is vital.

I told my mother about the ruling soon after the news, and she said: ‘that’s really great – maybe in my next trip there, I may even take a dip in the water.’ 

Plastic - decidedly NOT fantastic! - written by Petter Malvik

I used to not care about the problem of marine plastic pollution. In fact, prior to joining UN Environment about 14 months ago, I was blissfully ignorant of the issue. Sure, I knew that so-called single use-plastic was bad and dutifully tried to bring my tote bag when I went grocery shopping, but the question of where our discarded plastic bags, straws and plastic soda bottles actually ended up was one which I had never really given much thought (this lead to a somewhat awkward job interview, but that is a different story).

This is no longer the case. Having been involved with UN Environment’s #CleanSeas campaign for almost a year (launching a campaign takes time), I now almost know more than I care to about what happens with the plastic items we throw away. I know that every year, at least eight million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans. I know that this river of plastic has devastating effects on our marine environment and the creatures that live in it. I am not going to bore you with too many numbers, but I need to give you a couple: in 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean, and it is estimated that about 90 percent of sea birds have ingested plastic. One study found that almost 670 different marine species have already ingested or been entangled by plastic.  The fact that fish eat plastic means that we are as well. That is the price you pay for being at the top of the food chain, while also throwing away lots and lots of plastic. As if this was not bad enough, we know that the plastic that fish eat is typically microplastics. These are miniscule pieces of plastic that can absorb whatever toxins are already in the water. We do not know yet whether this can be harmful to us humans, but the thought of the fish we eat feasting on toxic plastic is not a comforting one.

In addition to working with governments and the private sector, an important part of the campaign is encouraging people to change their habits in a way that reduces their plastic footprints, and using their purchasing power to encourage companies to do the same. As a good campaign worker, and as someone who now knows all too well what plastic is doing to our oceans, I am trying to follow suit. This means I am still bringing my tote bag to the grocery store. I am also bringing my travel mug when I get coffee, I try to remember to ask waiters not to get me a straw when I order a drink, and I do my best to avoid buying products that come with a ridiculous amount of excessive packaging.  I sometimes slip up, though. A couple of times, I have impulsively decided to buy coffee on my way into the office only to discover that I left my coffee mug there. This has resulted in me getting a huge plastic cup for my iced coffee. Obviously, the cup comes with a straw. Entering the UN compound carrying this highly incriminating piece of evidence, I feel as if I were walking around with a bloody knife or a copy of Waterboarding for Dummies, and I try, with various degrees of luck, to hide from my colleagues until I have finished my guilt-tinged coffee.

I am getting better though, and that is important! The thing with marine plastic pollution is that no one can solve the problem alone, but we can all do something, and we should!  Here in Kenya, I am reminded of this every time I go to Lamu. Located in the Indian Ocean close to Somalia, this small island is a little piece of paradise and one of my favorite places to visit. But even there I cannot escape marine plastic; I see it on the otherwise pristine beaches when I go for a morning walk and in the ocean when I go for a swim afterwards. For me, although sad, it reminds me that what I do at work matters.

It matters what you do as well, even if you don’t work for UN Environment. That is why I urge you to go to www.cleanseas.org to join the campaign. Here, you can see what other people are doing to reduce their own plastic footprints. You can pledge to do the same, or you can come up with an action of your own. The time to act is now. Together we can turn the tide on plastic!