Gen.T commemorates Earth Day on April 22 this year with a private roundtable session featuring Singapore-based eco-activist Nadya Hutagalung to discuss environmental conservation and advocacy
In December 2020, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told an audience at a conference at Colombia University, "The state of our planet is broken." Over the years, we have seen the impacts of climate change grow, as countries across the world record warmer temperatures, higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and a decline in their biodiversity due to deforestation.
Today, we continue to witness all of this happen in addition to a tragic pandemic that has killed more than two million people globally and continues to rage on more than a year since it was first started. For Guterres, the Covid-19 pandemic illustrates how humanity's war on nature is "suicidal".
"Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing force and fury," he said. "With people and livestock encroaching further into animal habitats and disrupting wild spaces, we could see more viruses and other disease-causing agents jump from animals to humans. Let's not forget that 75 per cent of new and emerging human infectious diseases are zoonotic."
Yet, there is no silver bullet for our environmental issues—a matter UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador Nadya Hutagalung knows well.
Hutagalung has been recognised for her work in environmental advocacy, having served as Singapore's ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour for the last six years. She also spearheaded the campaign "Let Elephants Be Elephants" that raised awareness in Southeast Asia about the unethical ivory trade and is a Grasp Ambassador, appointed by the UN in 2015, alongside only four other revered conservationists, including primatologist Jane Goodall and paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey.
On April 22, Gen.T has invited her to speak at our upcoming Cloud Talk session. The closed-door event will take the form of a virtual roundtable, where a select group of Gen.T honourees from across Asia will converse with her about ways we can protect our planet through advocacy, conservation and education.
This Cloud Talk session is not open to public. See more Cloud Talk events here.