Environment: protection and safety

From 4 June to 10 July, a book exhibition “Environment: protection and safety” timed to World Environment Day runs in the Official documents reading room (room 207).

This holiday was established by resolution (A/RES/2994 (XXVII)) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December, 1972, during the 27th session. At the same session, a new UN organization – the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was established to coordinate the environment protection at the international level.

The World Environment Day is considered as one of the most important events in the ecological calendar. It is observed annually on 5 June in more than 100 countries. This date was chosen as on this day in 1972 the UN Conference on Human Environment opened in Stockholm. It gathered the plenipotentiary of 113 states to solve the global issues of environment protection.

To the United Nations Organization, World Environment Day is one of the key ways to attract the world community’s attention to the problems of environment and to underline the acute need to change the attitude of humanity towards natural resources. The annual celebration of this Day gives an opportunity to all peoples to feel keenly the urgent issues of conservancy and to further a sustainable and permanent process of environment protection. Today it is evident that the future of mankind and the whole planet in many respects depends on our ability for a quick and effectual solution of the most urgent issues of the environment such as pollution of nature, natural and human-caused disasters, biodiversity declining, and destruction of natural or cultural landscapes.

The environment protection is a new form of the interaction between human and nature appeared under current conditions. This is a system of governmental and public measures (technological, economic, administrative, legal, educational, international) aimed at a harmonious interaction between society and nature, safekeeping and reproduction of the acting ecological communities and natural resources in the name of existing and next generations. The global consequences of the habitat derangement have touched all countries as the ecological problems “ignore” frontiers. These problems are among the most urgent and define the level of the well-being of the world civilization on the whole and our state in particular.

The environment protection, the resources conservation and the ecological safety of a person are the integral condition of a sustainable economic and social development of Belarus. Our state works for the protection of the human right to a favorable environment and defines legal and economic means and methods of its protection and safekeeping.

The exhibition presents over 100 documents in Russian, English, French and German. The most part of the exposition is documents of international organizations: books, brochures, the UN mimeographed materials, periodicals and boolets.

• international and regional cooperation and interaction for the environment protection. The UNEP’s activity;
• international legal documents on the environment protection;
• the problem of natural resources exhaustion;
• the preservation of biodiversity;
• the problem of atmosphere pollution;
• the climate change;
• water resources pollution;
• the policy of the Republic of Belarus in the field of the environment protection.

The exhibition is designed for scientists, professors, students, specialists in nature management and environment protection, and also to everyone who is interested in ecological issues and the problem of preservation of biodiversity.

Useful links

• United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
• United Nations for environment protection
• Climate change
• The indigenous and environment
• Facts about deserts and desertification
• Endangered species
• United Nations for people and the planet
• Preservation of biodiversity (Chapter 15 of the Agenda 21st Century)
• The World Environment Day (5 June)
• The World Water Day (22 March)
• The International Day of Mother Earth (22 April)
• The World Biodiversity Day (22 May)
• The World Oceans’ Day (8 June)
• The World Day Against Desertification and Draught (17 June)
• The World Ozone Layer Preservation Day (16 September)
• The International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (6 November)
• The International Year of Forests (2011)
• The International Year of Biodiversity (2010)
• The International Year of Planet Earth (2008)
• The United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification (2010–2020)
• The International Decade for Action “Water for Life” (2005–2015)
• UN conference for climate change (Bali, Indonesia, December 3–14, 2007)
• The high level event for climate change (September 24, 2007)
• Summit “Planet Earth + 5” (1997)
• UN Conference on environment and development (1992)
• UN Conference on human environment (June 5–16, 1972)