3 . Gracing every continent of the Earth, wetlands are essential to the planet’s health, often compared to its vital organs, acting as arteries (动脉) that carry water and as kidneys that filter harmful substances.

Wetlands serve as protectors: they form protective barriers against tsunamis and absorb the excess rainfall. During the dry season in dry climates, wetlands release the stored water which helps delay the attack of drought and reduce water shortages. They also store vast quantities of carbon, helping ease climate change. Home to some of the most diverse and rich ecosystems, wetlands support one billion people. 40 percent of all plant and animal species live or breed in wetlands.

World Wetlands Day is observed each year on 2 February to increase people’s understanding of the importance of wetlands and raise awareness of the urgent need to protect the threatened natural treasure.

“We are proud to join in this celebration and recognize the unique and valuable ecosystem services provided by wetlands. We are committed to doing our part to conserve and protect wetlands, and we are calling on all of you to join us in this vital cause,” said UNCCD (The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.

To date, nearly 90 percent of the world’s wetlands have been degraded or lost, with 35 percent in the last 50 years alone. That is why on this World Wetlands Day, UNCCD is joining the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and other partners to highlight the examples of countries and communities making strides in wetland restoration.

As stressed by the UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw, successful wetland restoration requires a joint effort from governments, civil society and the private sector. Investments in science for technology innovation, infrastructure for effective management and financial mechanisms for project implementation (实施) can turn the tide toward a better future for wetlands.

4 . Small-scale fisheries supply many people with food. Almost all of those in this trade rely on gillnets (刺网) to trap fish. But gillnets trap other things, for example, endangered animals such as turtles; dangerous ones, such as Humboldt squid; and ones that are both endangered and dangerous, such as several types of sharks. Everyone involved would be better off if this did not happen.

Building on studies done both by himself and by others, to try to avoid the accidental netting of turtles, Jesse Senko, a marine-conservation biologist at Arizona State University, has been investigating the idea of fitting LEDs to nets to avoid netting other unwanted by-catch (误捕的鱼) without discouraging target animals. And, as he reports in Current Biology, it seems to work.

Dr. Senko and his team set up an experiment in the Gulf of Ulloa, in Mexico, in which they cooperated with local fishermen to employ over 10,000 meters of nets that had had nets battery-powered waterproof green LEDs fixed onto them every ten meters. Half of these lights were lit. The other half were left unlit, as controls. Each lit net was paired with an unlit one, and the two were used alongside one another at major fishing locations. The fishers’ target fish were large groupers (石斑鱼). Dr. Senko was interested both in what else got caught and whether the lights decreased catches of the target species.

On the latter point, to his relief, they did not. On the former, the lit net s caught 95% fewer kilograms of shark-related species. In particular, several threatened species turned up less often in the lit than the unlit nets.

The advantage from the point of view of fishermen was that they needed to spend a lot less time clearing these dangerous by-catches from their nets. And, crucially, the LEDs concerned are cheap, hard-wearing, and easy to fix. There are also plans to make them solar powered, for easy recharging. Here, then, is an environmental-protection idea from which everyone wins.

6 . When it comes to going green, intention can be easier than action. Case in point: you decide to buy a T-shirt made from 100% organic cotton. But that green label doesn’t tell the whole story—like the fact that even organic cotton requires more than 10,000 L of water to grow enough fibre for one T-shirt. Or the possibility that the T-shirt may have been dyed (染色) using harmful industrial chemicals. If you knew all that, would you still consider the T-shirt green? Would you still buy it?

It’s a hard question to answer. That’s because the global economy development is beyond our ability to comprehend the consequences—for ourselves and the planet. We are not prepared to understand the increasing impact of industrial chemicals on our children’s health or the climate. And we lack the data to understand the full impact of what we choose.

But what if we could calculate the full lifetime effect of our actions on the earth and on our bodies? Not just carbon footprints but social and biological footprints as well? What if we could think ecologically? That’s what psychologist Daniel Goleman describes in his forthcoming book, Ecological Intelligence. He compiles (汇编) the environmental and biological impact of our every decision and delivers that information to consumers in a user-friendly way. That’s thinking ecologically—understanding the global environmental consequences of our local choices.

Ecological intelligence is ultimately about more than what we buy. It’s also about our ability to accept that we live in a closely connected world with limited resources. Goleman highlights the Tibetan community of Sher, where for thousands of years, villagers have survived severe conditions by carefully protecting every resource available to them. The Tibetans think ecologically because they have no other choice. Neither do we. “We once had the luxury to ignore our impacts,” says Goleman. “Not any more.”

Earth Day was founded in 1970 as a day of education about environmental problems, and Earth Day 2020     1     (fall) on Wednesday, April 22 — the holiday’s 50th anniversary. The holiday is now a global celebration that’s sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green living.

    2    (elect) to the U. S. Senate (参议院) in 1962, Senator Gaylord Nelson was determined to convince the federal government that the planet was     3     risk. In 1969, Nelson developed the idea for Earth Day after     4     (inspire) by some teaching activities     5     were taking place on college campuses around the United States.

Denis Hayes, a young activist who had served as student president at Stanford University,     6    (select) as Earth Day’s national coordinator (协调者), and he worked with     7     army of student volunteers and several staff members from Nelson’s Senate office     8    (organize) the project.

The first Earth Day was effective at raising     9     (aware) about environmental problems and transforming public attitudes. Earth Day kicked off the “Environmental decade with a bang,” as Senator Nelson later put it. The theme of Earth Day 2020 is “climate action.” EarthDay.org hopes it will be the     10     (large) volunteer event in history.