World Mother Earth Day 2024 arrives

“From extreme heat and rising sea levels to biodiversity loss and pollution, Mother Earth is in danger and makes a clear call to action: the need to shift to a more sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet.”

This is the message launched by the United Nations on International Mother Earth Day 2024, which has been celebrated annually on April 22 since 2009. “Let us mobilize for the planet and for all the life it supports,” he emphasizes. We can all take action to protect nature, tackle climate change and promote harmony with the Earth”.

Both international institutions, such as NASA which encourages “taking a photo in your favorite corner of the world” and publishing it on social networks with the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, like other nationals, participate in this event from various countries around the world, including Spain.

The Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME-CSIC), for example, releases the documentary this Monday The secrets of the Planetdirected by Mario Cuesta, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

It is one of the events that it will carry out this year to celebrate its 175th anniversary and highlight its work related, among many other aspects, to the study of the past, the prevention of geological risks (volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, etc.), preservation of natural resources (such as aquifers), the current ecological transition, economic development and heritage preservation.

The IGME also promotes the creation of geoparques of UNESCO in 16 African countries, preparing the staff of the geological services of this continent, where there are only two (that of Ngorongoro in Tanzania and that of M’Goun in Morocco). For comparison, Spain has a fortnight and is the second country in the world with the most geoparks after China.

For its part, the University of Valencia has also organized an international seminar this Monday. About twenty presentations by researchers from Europe, Asia, America and Oceania can be followed online and from the La Nau Cultural Center.

The presentations, which begin with one given by a team from India from the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, will address the importance of land preservation, the singularities of the indigenous population and the conservation of biodiversity through the maintenance of cultural practices around the world, among other topics.

An Earth for all and inclusive

To commemorate Earth’s Day and as a preview of Geolodía 2024 to be held on May 11 and 12, the Geological Society of Spain (SGE) has also recently organized the activity A trip to the past at the Somosaguas paleontological siteattended by a group of 25 students from the Capacis Foundation, a non-profit organization that works on the social and labor insertion of young people with borderline intelligence.

The event was held at the paleontological site located on the Somosaguas campus of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), where three paleontologists from its Faculty of Geological Sciences got the students to travel to about 14 million years ago to learn, through of fossils, large vertebrates and small rodents who lived in the extensive savanna that covered this territory.

This abstraction was possible thanks to the use of replicas of the remains of the animals found at the site and various workshops with which the young audience was able to excavate with real fossil material, becoming paleontologists for a day.

One of the objectives was to adapt the route and the teaching materials to people with disabilities, so that everyone can have access to geological knowledge.

The event was attended by representatives of the Governing Board of the SGE, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid, the managing bodies of the UCM and the Inclusive Science Office of the CSIC.

Fuente: SGE/IGME/UV

Rights: Creative Commons.