June 29: International Day of the Tropics

Every year, on June 29, the International Day of the tropics is celebrated by the United Nations. The day celebrates the diversity of the tropics and highlights unique challenges and opportunities of the region.

Tropics

The tropics are the regions between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropics of Capricorn. The most important feature of the region is the prevalence of rain in most of the regions near the equator. The seasonality of rainfall increases with increase in distance from the equator.

Today, the tropics is facing challenges such as deforestation, climate change, logging, demographic changes and urbanization.

Significance

According to the United Nations, the region is to host most of the world’s people by 2050. It is expected to see higher levels of poverty, undernourishment than the rest of the world. This is mainly because, the urban population living in slum is higher in tropics that the rest of the world.

Background

The International Day of the Tropics was launched in 2014. It was launched under the culmination of collaboration of 12 leading tropical research institutions.

Why June 29?

June 29 was chosen to celebrate the International Day of the Tropics as the Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi launched the inaugural report “State of Tropics Report” on this day. The report is the culmination of collaboration of 12 leading tropical research institutions.

The day was chosen to honour the launch of the report.

Need

The Tropics account to 40% of the world total surface area. It hosts 80% of the world biodiversity.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2020