Australia dims lights for Earth Hour to raise awareness of environment protection-Xinhua

Australia dims lights for Earth Hour to raise awareness of environment protection

Source: Xinhua| 2023-03-25 20:29:00|Editor: huaxia

The Sydney Opera House goes dark during the Earth Hour event in Sydney, Australia, March 25, 2023. (Photo by Hu Jingchen/Xinhua)

SYDNEY, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Australia's landmarks, including the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge, went dark for one hour on Saturday night as part of a global movement to raise awareness about climate change and nature loss.

Earth Hour 2023 aims to raise awareness of the importance of trees and nature to wildlife, communities, and people's mental and physical well-being.

"Switching off the lights is a symbolic gesture. The first step towards taking a stand for our planet and calling for greater action on climate change and nature loss," Kerri Major, Earth Hour engagement manager at World Wide Fund (WWF) Australia, told Xinhua.

Major hoped that the event can encourage more Australians to make small switches in their daily life and to consider what they can do to help slow deforestation.

According to WWF Australia, continued deforestation and industrial logging are major contributors to climate change, noting that every year an estimated 70 million trees are being destroyed or damaged in the country.

Eastern Australia has also been identified as one of the 24 global deforestation hotspots in WWF's report "Deforestation fronts: Drivers and responses in a changing world" in 2021, which indicates that over 700 native plant and animal species are threatened by forest habitat destruction including the iconic koala.

"Australia is becoming hotter and more prone to extreme bushfires, droughts and floods," said Major.

She stressed that without putting a stop to the destruction of trees, protecting the remaining forests and restoring the lost, people may be at risk of more severe droughts and climate catastrophes.

Earth Hour is an annual global environmental movement organized by the WWF. Every year on the last Saturday of March, it calls people around the world to switch off lights at 8:30 p.m. in their local time to show support for the planet.

Starting in Australia's Sydney in 2007, the initiative has become one of the world's largest grassroots campaigns for the environment with supporters in over 190 countries and territories.

The Sydney Opera House goes dark during the Earth Hour event in Sydney, Australia, March 25, 2023. (Photo by Hu Jingchen/Xinhua)

The Sydney Harbor Bridge goes dark during the Earth Hour event in Sydney, Australia, March 25, 2023. (Photo by Hu Jingchen/Xinhua)

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