It’s both World Earth Day and Mother Earth Day today, a date that has grown in significance over recent years.

It’s undeniable that nature is suffering rising temperature records year on year, flooding, droughts, and habitat devastation.

As we’re seeing with Covid-19, climate change, man-made disruption to nature and biodiversity through deforestation, urbanization, intensified farming, and illegal wildlife trading, increase contact and the transmission of animal-human infections (zoonotic diseases).

Biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide at unprecedented rates.

It is estimated that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

It’s time to commit to whatever we can do, and shift to a more sustainable, harmonious economy that works for both people and the planet and urgently limits climate change.

At conservation charities like the Oasis, this means a responsibility to educate and participate in vital breeding programmes, not just around well-known species like lemurs, fossa’s, wildcats, and snow leopards, but invaluable insects, bees and spiders as well.

Since reopening, it’s been encouraging to see how open visitors are to this message, keen to share what they are doing, and discover more.

Just putting more emphasis on everyday items, like drink cups and crisp packets, is helping us reduce, compost, and recycle a lot of the waste we produce onsite, and promote ways we can all move towards this at home.

Through school lessons about our world and the climate, new focus, and curriculums, it’s wonderful that children are growing up much more aware of the environment, their role- and their power. Action does put pressure on politicians, and that’s how global change spreads.

Many important environmental events have happened on Earth Day, including 2016’s Paris Agreement.

President Biden is clearly signalling his commitment to action by re-joining the agreement and choosing to convene a global climate summit today.

With Glasgow due to host the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November, momentum may be gathering at last.

Don’t be put off by thinking it’s all too much: we don’t have to be perfect; we just have to try. ‘Every little’ really does help, and if we all try, it can have a big effect.