Happy New Year 2020: Lend your Support to International Year of Plant Health 2020 and the UN Decade

Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays to all. This holiday season will be bringing about a unique sense of joy to everyone given that this upcoming new year will officially mark the start of the new 2020 decade for the world. This new decade will bring about things and resolutions for this year of 2020 that everyone should work to accomplish. There are two ways that the United Nations is developing its own resolutions with this new year as well as the decade that we will be entering toward the end of December 2019.

First, in December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/73/252 declaring 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). This initiative is considered a once in a lifetime opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.

This proposal was first initiated at the 10th Session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-10) when Finland urged its creation. The proposal received strong support from the CPM-10, which decided to pursue the proclamation of the IYPH in 2020 under the leadership of Finland.

Plants are the source of the air we breathe and most of the food we eat, yet we often don’t think about keeping them healthy. This can have devastating results. FAO estimates that up to 40% of food crops are lost due to plant pests and diseases annually. This leaves millions of people without enough food to eat and seriously damages agriculture - the primary source of income for rural poor communities.

Plant health is increasingly under threat. Climate change, and human activities, have altered ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and creating new niches where pests can thrive. At the same time, international travel and trade has tripled in volume in the last decade and can quickly spread pests and diseases around the world causing great damage to native plants and the environment.

One way that you can make your mark through this international year is to spread the word about #PlantHealth on social media and in your community throughout 2020 and beyond. Another identifiable way is to take daily actions to reduce your environmental footprint and actively engage in initiatives to protect and manage natural resources.

Next, the United Nations has declared 2021-2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Declared on March 1, 2019, the General Assembly is aiming to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity.

In a sense, ecosystem restoration is fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, mainly those on climate change, poverty eradication, food security, water and biodiversity conservation. The Decade will accelerate existing global restoration goals through initiatives like

the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded ecosystems by 2030, an area almost the size of India.

With the new year now fast approaching, consider lending your support to the International Year of Plant Health and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. That would be a step in the right direction in making this year and decade productive in achieving action on climate change and environmental conservation.