Sustainable Development Goals

1. Describe your chosen issues and show how it is related to the broader SDG.
Provide the reader with scope and context for further discussion?

Answer: To create the world as per the requirement of the people, in 2015 United Nation
Member states adopted certain goals and named them as Sustainable Development Goals.
Main aim of these goals is to take whole world into action to give all human being a better
life by removing poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring that all living things enjoy peace
and prosperity by the year 2030 (United Nations 2017). All the main issues of the world were
identified and then categorised into 17 categories. These goals provide the world a best
chance to collaborate and then provide solutions to these issues globally by ensuring a
healthy and golden future for our self, for our children and their upcoming generations.
Earlier from 2000 to 2015 goals were categorised into eight international goals. Among
which first three goals addressed education, poverty and gender inequality. Further next three
goals covers health related issued which include maternal health, child mortality and other
diseases. At last, two goals include environmental issues and globalisation for development.
Then in 2015 new more issues were addressed and then total 17 main categories of goals
were formed. These 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets are brought into
scope and covers three dimensions of development: social inclusion, economic growth and
environment protection. The UN resolution refers to 5’P’s, which are Planet, People,
Prosperity, Partnership and Peace. Total 17 main Sustainable Development Goals are as
follows:

(1) No Poverty, (2) Zero Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-being, (4) Quality Education, (5)
Gender Equality, (6) Clean Water and Sanitation, (7) Affordable and Clean Energy, (8)
Decent Work and Economic Growth, (9) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, (10)
Reducing Inequality, (11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, (12) Responsible
Consumption and Production, (13) Climate Action, (14) Life Below Water, (15) Life On
Land, (16) Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, (17) Partnerships for the Goals.

Among these 17 goals one goal that I have preferred to choose is goal 15 “Life On Land”.
The main reason for choosing this goal is that most of the other goals focuses on how to
improve the human habitat and all this will only improve, if we have proper life on land not
for ourselves, but for other species also. Main goal of this theme is to protect and restore the
biosphere, then promote the use of terrestrial ecosystem. Further it also includes the
management of forests, combats the desertification then finally reverses the land to
degradation and halts the loss of biodiversity.
2. What needs to be done?

Answer: Total Forest on Earth is home for more than 80 percent of most land living species
and offers us to eat, live and breathe. However, through global warming, deforestation and
by killing animals humans are destroying earth and their inhabitants. Yet will the help of
Sustainable Development Goals this can be stopped and by working together globally steps
can be taken to take care of our ecosystem. Certain steps should be taken to stop, then
promote and finally to restore our planet insects, plants and animals. By taking care of the
changes we make to change our future, to sustain forests, combating desertification and can
stop this biodiversity loss. Under this goal certain sub goals were designed to take certain
actions to protect this ecosystem which are:

A. Conservation and restoration of terrestrial as well as fresh water ecosystem: This

sub-goal has mainly two indicators, firstly forest land as a proportion of total land
area and secondly proportion of some important sites for freshwater as well as
terrestrial biodiversity mainly covered by protected areas. Forests mainly cover 30.7
percent or 4 billion hectares of total world area. Among which 7 percent is the planted
and 93 percent is natural forest. According to latest report total area of forest land in
2000 was 31.9 percent which fell to 31.2 percent in year 2020 indicating the loss of
approximately 100 million hectares of total world forest (United Nations Economic
2020). The main reason for decreasing forest area was conversion of land to
agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America and South East Asia. However in
some areas like Europe, Asia and Northern America forest area increased (Forest area,
2015).
B. Stop deforestation and restore the degraded forest: under this goal main focus was
to promote the sustainable management implementation on each and every forest,
 then halt deforestation and restore the degraded forest by afforestation (United
Nations 2017). According to the United Nation, Sustainable Forest Management is a
dynamic concept that focuses to maintain as well as enhance the social, economic and
environment values of forest.
C. Stop the desertification and then restoring the land back to normal: It mainly
focuses on combat desertification, restoring the degraded soil as well as land , even
including the land that is affected by floods and drought. Desertification affects
approx one sixth of the total world population, dry lands by 70 percent and one fourth
of world’s total land. It further leads to the degradation of billions of hectares of
cropland (Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform).
D. Make proper laws to conserve the mountain ecosystem: According to the 2017
report 76 percent of total world mountain area is covered by green vegetation which
includes shrubs, forest, cropland and grassland.
E. Protection of biodiversity as well as natural habitat: It includes taking urgent as
well as significant actions to ensure the degradation of natural habitat, stop the loss of
biodiversity and then protect the extinction of some species. The Red List index
indicates overall risk for extinction of some species and this index is used by
government to keep track on the progress on biodiversity loss. According to the report
of 2020 stated that over the past decade the risk of extinction of species has worsened
by 10 percent forest (United Nations Economic 2020).
F. Protecting the genetic resources and sharing of their benefits: Under this goal
numbers of countries are told to adopt administrative, policy and legislative
framework to ensure the proper sharing of benefits. Nagoya protocol is used to access
the genetic resources and equally shares the benefits that arise after their utilization on
biological diversity. In 2020 there are 146 contracting parties and 56 countries have
already provided the information on measures of benefit sharing.
G. Elimination of poaching as well as trafficking the protected species: Take specific
actions to stop poaching of species of fauna and flora. Further also stop the demand as
well as supply of all illegal wildlife products.
H. Prevention of invasive alien species in water ecosystem as well as on land: Under
this goal measures are taken to prevent as well as reduce the impact of all invasive
alien species in water and land and then control the priority species.
I. Integrate biodiversity as well as ecosystem in governmental planning: Under this
goal strategic plan of biodiversity from 2011-2020 was further progressed with title
Aichi Biodiversity Target 2. Ii is used to address the main causes of loss of
biodiversity by accepting biodiversity across society as well as government.
According to report of January 2020 total 129 parties, also the European Union
submitted the sixth report. Under which approximately half of the countries made
success in term of their targets (United Nations, 2017).
3. Where should it be done?

Answer: Forest area is the primary source for preserving our ecosystem. Combined
efforts are required in the development and restoration of this challenge in some
developing as well as developed countries as they are also facing challenges in
 Sustainable Development Goals. Regions are differentiated according to the similarities
in the economic development instead of topography and geography. Some of the areas are
combined and marked with colours according to the degradation level of land. Firstly five
regions are accessed like USA, China, OECD, BRISE(Brazil, Russia, India , South Africa
and 10 others emerging countries), and finally Rest of the world(ROW). It includes
agricultural land, forest area and restoration of degraded land According to the recent
report of 2020 it has been observed that OCED, China and USA are showing some
marginal increase in their forests.

Further, some other areas should be preferred to works on which are main primary
sources for destruction of biodiversity like Indonesia. One of the fastest growing
economy of world and fourth most popular country Indonesia have dozens of pulpwood
suppliers manage forest of 2.6 million hectares. Tropical forests are full of important
biodiversity on which million of people depend for their livelihoods. It is due to
Greenpeace which brought to notice that these companies are converting the tropical
forest into plantation for things like palm oil and paper. Then after putting pressure on
companies like Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) and bringing into the coverage of media
they agreed to launch Forest Conservation Policy in 2013 and committed to zero
deforestation. According to Greenbury it has been very hard to achieve this Sustainable
Development Goal in actual but they succeed in achieving it and the progress has been
observed from the past 5 years (Greenbury A 2016). Similarly, some areas of Africa,
Asia, Europe should be observed where there is degradation of land and specific measures
should be taken to preserve the biodiversity. Moreover, Bushfire in Australia occurs
probably every year in which thousands of species are affected. Recently in 2020 bushfire
in Australia occur in which about 832 species of vertebrate animals were affected among
which 51 species have lost their 30-50 percent of habitat. UN should observe the reasons
for these fires and take certain steps to preserve the biodiversity.

4. When does it need to be done?

Answer: The sustainable development goals are a collection of total 17 interlinked goals
designed for the better and sustainable future for everyone. This goal was set in 2015 by the
general Assembly of United Nation and dead line to achieve this goal is intended by year
2030. All the main issues related to biodiversity and ecosystem have already been identified
and the work is already in progress. In some developed as well as developing countries the
results are positive and work is continuously in progress.

5. Who should do it?

Answer: The United Nation with all countries government in 2015 set some development
goals and take responsibility to achieve these goals by 2030. Sustainable Development Goals
of United Nation are basically based on three elements which are mostly interlinked with
each other: social inclusion, economic growth and protection of environment. All the 17
goals come under these categories only.
However, it not only countries government or United Nation who are mainly responsible for
achieving these goals. It is responsibility of every individual, community, schools and
families to be a part of this today’s change makers. Everyone should observe the wrong
things around them and take part in changing them and further motivate others to be a part of
this change. Everyone should put positive impact on world by knowing these 17 sustainable
development goals and apply them on daily basis. Moreover, educational institutions also
incorporate the goals in their curriculum and teach students as they are the pillars of this
society and future of this generation.

6. How should it be done?

Answer: A prospering life on this land is the main foundation for people lives on this planet
Since 1970, number of living animals, birds, mammals, fish and amphibians have been
halved according to WWF’s report. Currently the extinction pace of species is 1000 times
more than their natural rate of extinction. Biodiversity is on top chart among goals when all
the heads of 160 countries meet to discuss the 17 goals. We all human being are part of this
ecosystem and have done severe damage to this planet through loss of natural habitat, and
deforestation. It is our key role to take care of life on land and through this goal it can be
achieved by following ways.

 Putting nature first: Implementing this goal requires strong political will and
trillions of dollars to change the things that are degrading the biodiversity and
polluting the environment. The United nation should establish global value chain to
fight illegal wildlife trade and poaching as well as fish and timber.
 Biodiversity on a global public level: By reducing the emission from forest
degradation and deforestation great impact to reducing pollution from nature.
Programs should be shown to ban on cutting of trees through which awareness can be
spread at public level.
 New business models: It is private sector that is mainly responsible for production,
development and consumption of natural resources. So in order to maintain the
biodiversity loss goals 15 should be applied on global scale and the modification
required in every business level should be done strongly.
7. Why does it need to be done?

Answer: The main reason behind applying this goal is to preserve this nature from polluting,
save wildlife and natural habitat, so that upcoming generations can enjoy these resources to
their fullest. We get most of the resources from Forest and wildlife also depends on forest. So
it is of great need to apply sustainable development goal to protect world hunger and
degradation of planet Earth.

8. What if? Can Design Thinking be used to solve the issue?

Answer: Design thinking is a process in which person try to have the understanding of user
problems, challenge assumptions and then redefine the problems in order to develop new
strategies and solutions. Similarly, Design thinking can be applied to solve the issues of
nature. To cast an example, there is a regular bushfire of Australia due to which millions of
trees are burnt along with thousand of species. So design thinking can be applied by first
understanding the problem that why there are fires then defining the issues and knowing the
reasons behind fires in bushes and finally certain strategies should be developed using
prototypes to control this problem and in case if this happens then what measures should be
taken.

Refrences:

Forest area, 2015, “Sustainable Development Goals”, Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations".

Greenbury, A 2016, “Plunging to Zero Deforestation”, project report on SDG 15, pp-115.

Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, "Desertification, land degradation and

drought”, online available at sustainabledevelopment.un.org.

United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2020, “Progress towards the Sustainable
Development Goals”, Report of the Secretary-General.

United Nations, 2017, “Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017”, Work
of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.