The global call for peace

Sri Lanka and the rest of the world celebrated the International Day of Peace for the 25th time on September 21. Many activities were organised around the world as well as in our own island to emphasise the need for peace.

The need for peace is now being felt right throughout the world due to peace being in short supply these days. Wars are being faught, people are being killed and violence is taking place on a daily basis. But, peace seems such a distant dream. The farther peace seems, the more people yearn for it.

Peace is especially important for children as without it, they cannot gain a good education or enjoy the fun and freedom that is their natural right.

The lack of peace deprives children of their parents and relatives, the right to a safe childhood and education and even their lives and limbs. So, for children to grow up and become productive and useful adults, peace is a must.

Some of the activities that were carried out around the world to celebrate the International Day of Peace included observing periods of silence; ringing bells and lighting candles for peace; events at schools, places of worship, libraries and parks; and peace vigils.

The Day gave an opportunity for individuals, organisations and nations to create and share acts of peace on the same day. It is also used annually to highlight the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001 to 2010.

The International Day of Peace was established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 and was initially to be commemorated on the third Tuesday of September 1982.

Beginning on the 20th anniversary in 2002, the UN General Assembly set September 21 as the permanent date for this Day.

In establishing this special day, the UN General Assembly decided that it would be appropriate "to devote a specific time to concentrate the efforts of the United Nations and its member states, as well as of the whole of mankind, to promoting the ideals of peace and to giving positive evidence of their commitment to peace in all viable ways.

The day should be devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples."

The amended resolution fixing the date for September 21 also added the call for the International Day of Peace to be a global ceasefire.

The resolution "Declares that the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day..."

Gorillas now 'critically endangered'

The most common type of gorilla is now "critically endangered," one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released recently by the World Conservation Union.

The Ebola virus is depleting(reducing)Western Gorilla populations to a point where it might become impossible for them to recover.

Commercial hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss due to logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations are compounding (worsening) the problem, said the Swiss-based group known by its acronym IUCN.

"Great apes are our closest living relatives and very special creatures," Russ Mittermeier, head of IUCN's Primate Specialist Group, told the Associated Press. "We could fit all the remaining great apes in the world into two or three large football stadiums. There just aren't very many left."

In all, 16,306 species are threatened with extinction, 188 more than last year, IUCN said. One in four mammals are in jeopardy (danger), as are one in eight birds, a third of all amphibians and 70 per cent of the plants that have been studied. "Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken," the IUCN warned.

The Western Gorilla's main subspecies - the Western Lowland Gorilla - has been decimated (destroyed) by the Ebola virus, which has wiped out about a third of the gorillas found in protected areas over the last 15 years.

"In the last 10 years, Ebola is the single largest killer of apes. Poaching (illegal catching of animals) is a close second," said Peter Walsh, a member if IUCN's Primate Specialist Group. "Ebola is knocking down populations to a level where they won't bounce back. The rate of decline is dizzying. If it continues, we'll lose them in 10-12 years."

Female gorillas only start reproducing at the age of 9 or 10 and only have one baby about every five years. Walsh said even in ideal conditions, it would take the gorillas decades to bounce back.

The World Conservation Union also said the Yangtze River dolphin is now "possibly extinct". There have been no documented sightings of the long-snouted cetacean (member of the whale family) since 2002. An intensive search of its habitat in November and December proved fruitless but more searches are needed as one was possibly spotted in late August.

The Redheaded Vulture soared from "near threatened" to "critically endangered". The birds' rapid decline over the last eight years is largely due to diclofenac, a painkiller given to ill or injured farm cattle so they can still work. But the substance poisons the vultures when they scavenge livestock carcasses.

Only 182 breeding adults of the Gharial crocodile remain, down almost 60 per cent from a decade ago. India and Nepal's crocodile has become critically endangered because dams, irrigation projects and artificial embankments have reduced its habitat to just two per cent of its former range.

The woolly-stalked begonia is the only species declared extinct this year. Extensive searches have failed to uncover any specimens of the Malaysian herb in the last century, IUCN said.

Only one species moved to a lesser category of threat. One of the world's rarest parrots 15 years ago, the Mauritius Echo parakeet, eased back from critically endangered to only endangered. That was a result of close monitoring of its nesting sites, and supplementary feeding combined with a captive breeding and release programme.

IUCN says 785 species have disappeared over the last 500 years. A further 65 are found only in artificial settings such as zoos.

The Red List, produced by a worldwide network of thousands of experts, includes some 41,000 species and subspecies around the globe.

AP