SDG 15 Life on Land
Begin your journey by exploring this page . The buttons below take you to Google Earth Voyager where a number of projects that relate to SDG 15 can be found. Student participant's work can also be found here. The materials here are only the beginning of your journey, explore them and then follow your focus of interest.
The videos below are thought provoking stimuli. Take time to become familiar with the issues. This is such a broad subject and it may be that you have a range of interests around this subject, just as the participants below have. Remember that while you as participants in the ASEF Edu Global Writing Project may be completing curricular activities, you can also write creatively and in any form.
SDG 15 Life on Land:
Go to the UN page on SDG 3 by clicking on the button. Read the information it contains.
Ask yourselves some key questions like the ones below and then go to Flipgrid and record your responses. Your teacher has the Flipgrid code.
Welcome to Flipgrid! Tap the green plus below to open the Flipgrid Camera. Then, record a short video and...
Introduce yourself briefly. Say your name, age, nationality.
Identify why you selected this SDG.
Explain the goal and what it is about
Why is it important to reach a situation of good health and well being for everyone in the world? You must highlight why the problem is relevant and requires intervention. You can present figures to support your view.
Is the goal relevant in your country? You can present figures
What should be done in your country to satisfy this goal?
How can you act to help make it achievable?
What are the facilitators and inhibitors of establishing health and well-being in the world?
Student Responses to SDG 15
The Importance of Bees
By Laoisewood (Ireland)() Write The World
Although you may only view bees as fuzzy, black and yellow bugs that fly from flower to flower, stinging anyone in their path, they actually play a major role on our planet and without them, life would cease to exist. Bees are an extremely important part of our environment as they are our predominant pollinator, pollinating one-third of all the food we eat. Pollination is so important for us, as many of the fruits and vegetables we eat depend on pollination to be fertilised including broccoli, strawberries, tomatoes and almonds as does the crops we feed to our livestock. So without pollination, we could go hungry!
Bees are vital in the preservation of an ecological balance and biodiversity in nature. Their pollinisation protects and maintains ecosystem as well as animal and plant species.
However, the importance of bees is not internationally known, as is why bees are disappearing. In recent years, the number of bees on a global is declining, as they face a multitude of threats. As urban developments and invasive farming methods increase, bees’ habitats begin to decline. Deforestation not only decreases the number of trees in one area, but also the amount of bees, as their hives are destroyed. The use of toxic pesticides is one of the main reasons for the decline of bees. Although they are made to remove pests, they also cause serious harm to the bee population. The decline of bees could be fatal for our Earth, so, what can WE do to prevent a future without bees?
To help preserve the bees species, there are a number of measures we need to make. Firstly, you can fill your gardens with bee-friendly flowers. This is an easy step to take to save the bees! Pesticides need to stop being used. As they are the main cause of the decline of bees, they removal of pesticides would greatly strengthen the bee population. As bees’ habitats are being destroyed, building an insect house in your garden could really help the bees by giving them a place to hibernate! These things may not seem like great life changes, but by doing them, we could help repopulate the Earth with bees!
A Cow Burp
By Hall (Ireland)() Write the World
When cows eat grass the microbes in the rumen break down and ferment it making methane gas as a by-product - This process is called 'enteric fermentation'. The cow then burps, or farts the methane gas out.
My name is Aoife Hall and I am a 17 year old Loreto Balbriggan Student who is scared for her future, although I feel for the cows who’s passing of gas is partly responsible for the melting of our icecaps, the pollution of our air and ultimately the premature end of our beautiful planet. In saying that, it cannot be helped that cows must fart/ burp. When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go!
I believe that although we can’t stop cows from burping (better out than in)
there are ways in which which we can reduce the methane emissions by a massive 30%.
Just a quarter teaspoon of Bovaer per cow per day suppresses the enzyme that triggers methane production in a cows rumen and consistently reduces enteric methane emission by 30%. It takes effect immediately and it's safely broken down in the cows normal digestive system.
By bringing these tactics to farms I believe that we can slow down global warming and the cows and little calves can be burp-fart happy!
If you take anything away from this article, let it be this;
Bovaer let’s the cows burp!
Bovaer was created by a company DSM, which creates nutritional products of environmental benefit. The idea behind the product is that is neutralises the methane within the cow and breaks down normally with no damage done to the little zebra- horse!
Cows, although their burps are dangerous, play so many important roles in society...
This brings me on to my next topic;
Should we be eating beef??
There have been many different conversations about this topic, all with equally relevant points..
Studies have shown that eating cow meat can increase our chances of stroke and many types of cancer, it also may lead to diabetes and studies have shown it can lead to early death.
These statements may sound dramatic but if our society cuts down on its consumption of meat, and substitutes it with other forms of protein such as nuts, lentils beans and other pulses even for three out of seven days of the week, the emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced again by a further 30%!!!!!!
As you can see, the point I am trying to make in this article is simply that cows are extremely central to our global warming issues and these issues are easily fixed! These issues are right outside our house, or down the road from us. As teenagers, I believe we are the future and we need to take action ourselves. Unfortunately (even though it would be pretty cool) cows cannot talk.
We need to protect these creatures and be the voice for them.
The mismanagement of urban waste
By Dinis Bernardo, & Tomas (Portugal)() Write the World
We are concerned about Forest Pollution, in particular, the mismanagement of urban solid waste, which is related to the SDG 15 - Life on Earth and SDG 13 - Climate Action. In Portugal, the amount of rubbish that is dumped in the forest is increasing, so this is the time to start doing some big changes to save our planet.
On average, every Portuguese person produces 1,38 kg of solid waste per day, according to Relatório do Estado do Ambiente. Part of this is illegally dumped in the forest. If this doesn’t get solved, many ecosystems may disappear, because, the soil will get contaminated, and, when it rains, the water sheets will get too, which will affect plants, and consequently, animals won’t get their aliment.
Authorities and the government have started doing some actions like training actions, implementing this topic in schools and others and, fortunately, people have paid more attention to this. There is a big concern about improving recycling methods and the management of urban waste because there are national and community goals to meet. Some of this waste will surely be dumped in landfills, although this is a situation that we try to avoid, but, thankfully, another part has as destination recycling (the transformation) and composting.
Urban waste management services are responsible for capturing, transporting, sorting and recovering or disposing of urban waste. It is considered that collecting residues from homes constitutes a downward activity, substantiating, the remaining steps upward activities. There are about 258 service management entities down and 23 service management entities up. Of these 23 entities, 12 are multi-municipal (11 are part of Empresa Geral do Fomento (EGF) and BRAVAL which manage around 66% of the urban waste produced) and 11 are inter-municipal.
According to “Sociedade Ponto Verde”, a company licensed as a packaging waste management entity, after the collection at recycling banks, the garbage goes to the centers where a screening process is carried out. The materials of the green and blue containers are stored or and then transported to the recycling companies. The rubbish from the yellow recycling banksis separated depending on the type of material (plastic, metal, and cartons for liquid foods,...) and they are submitted to screening. During this second process, plastic waste is separated into eight types and metals in two types (aluminum and steel). Only after this screening and separation, this trash goes to authorized companies, where finally it will be treated and transformed into raw material for new products.
In Sátão, the mismanagement of the urban waste is a substantial problem, once, the forests are full of junk, completely covering the ground in some cases, so it is urgent that we start doing something. Despite the investment from the municipality of Sátão to requalify the ecocenter and buy new recycling banks (adding to the 31 already existent), part of its population keeps dumping the waste in the forest.
Many apps have been created in order to solve all these problems, like Waste App, by Quercus, which tells us where the nearest recycling center is, but, we want to go a step further, adding to this feature, a platform where you and corporations can ask for used objects to reuse, like cans or water bottles, and then you could just set a meeting point to receive them, so you use them in your project.
The app Forest Watcher is another app to be aware of deforestation, basically, this app is based on taking a picture a selected a region and answer some questions about deforestation in that region. This app is very good to be aware of the deforestation and degradation problem. This app will be even more complete if it had more questions to answer and, unfortunately, this app won't solve the degradation and deforestation problems.
The app Recicle.me is another app to help people to recycle. A positive aspect of this app is that all users benefit from using it: some dispose the ecopoint of home while others can use other people's waste for things that need, but this app needs a lot of upgrades, for example, if the app showed the location of the delivery of waste on a map, the app would be much better and more convenient. It would be even more complete if when you register you had to put the city where you live and so the application could have a map with the location of all street eco-points of your city. It would be even better if it had information about what can and cannot put into the various eco-points.
Sources:
● Unknown author . 15/11/2018 . Portuguese “recycling less and producing more waste” . Retrieved on 18/03/2020, from:
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portuguese-recycling-less-and-producing-more-waste/47516
● Unknown author . 2016 . Portugal still way off from 2020 recycling goals. Retrieved on
09/03/2020, from:
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/portugal-still-way-off-2020-recycling-goals/38280
● Unknown author . 27/06/2019 . Produção e Gestão de resíduos urbanos . Retrieved on 18/03/2020, from:
https://rea.apambiente.pt/content/produ%C3%A7%C3%A3o-e-gest%C3%A3o-de-res%C3%ADduos-urbanos
● Natasha Donn . 18/01/2020 . Portugal accused of being dumping ground for foreign
rubbish . Retrieved on 09/02/2020, from:
https://www.portugalresident.com/portugal-accused-of-being-dumping-ground-for-foreign-rubish/
● Unknown author . Unknown date . Resìduos Urbanos . Retrieved on 18/03/2020, from:
https://cm-satao.pt/município/serviços/ambiente/resíduos-urbanos/
● Unknown author . 15/11/2019 . Gestão dos resíduos e processo de reciclagem: O que precisa saber . Retrieved on 18/03/2020, from:
https://www.cgd.pt/Site/Saldo-Positivo/Sustentabilidade/Pages/processo-de-reciclagem.aspx