World Ecology Day is celebrated on February 22. The term ecology represents a science that studies the relationship between organisms and the relationship between organisms and their environment. The term was first introduced by E. H. Haeckel, who described ecology using the Greek words oikos-home and logos-speech, that includes an interdisciplinary character, since it studies the relationships of plants and animals to very diverse factors of the living and non-living environment.
These are climatic factors, edaphic factors or soil factors, as well as the effects of plant and animal life and various indirect or direct human influences, the so-called. anthropogenic factors. Human ecology, as a division of ecology according to the type of organism, deals with the study of the relationship between man and his environment. Man, who improved technology and industries with his development, reversed the impact on the environment and threatened his survival. By his actions towards nature, such as the consumption of natural resources, inappropriate disposal of waste, the release of harmful chemicals and many other procedures, man endangers his environment and the biosphere.
An essential feature of guaranteeing the sustainability of planet Earth is sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development was defined for the first time by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The Commission describes sustainable development as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising future generations' ability to meet their own needs. In order to protect the environment as much as possible, it is recommended to reuse and recycle waste, control the release of gases into the atmosphere, maximize the rate of use of renewable energy sources and ensure the protection of forest areas.
Also, ecological restoration is one of the important factors of ecology. Namely, ecological restoration consists of recovering the structure and function of a degraded ecosystem, returning it to its previous, known state. Among the methods implemented in ecological restoration, we should mention afforestation, secondary succession, biological corridors and translocations.
Humans are not the masters of the Earth, only its temporary inhabitants. This sentence encourages us to use and maintain the Earth's resources wisely. Once the importance of preserving the environment and the difficulty of restoring what has been destroyed is accepted, only then will living in harmony with nature begin.
Translated by: Andrea Božić