The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are made to develop humanity while also sustaining our natural environment. The organization that has created these goals is the United Nations (UN). The UN was formed in 1945 after the events of World War 2. It is an organization that started off with 51 countries and now has 193 different countries. Its purpose was to maintain international peace and security between countries.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, made by the UN, defines Sustainable Development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”. To a normal person this looks like a bunch of random words a kindergarten student has glued together, so let me break it down. Basically, it means that we must solve current problems today (such as poverty, climate change, equality et cetera) while also making sure future generations, like our future kids and grandchildren, are not in trouble either.
To achieve Sustainable Development, the UN has made 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that we should achieve by the year 2030. They are:
- No Poverty
- Zero Hunger
- Good Health and Wellbeing
- Quality Education
- Gender Equality
- Clean Water and Sanitation
- Affordable and Clean Energy
- Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
- Reduced Inequalities
- Sustainable Cities and Communities
- Responsible Consumption and Production
- Climate Action
- Life Below Water
- Life on Land
- Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- Partnerships for the Goals
Most of them are self-explanatory, like No Poverty, Quality Education, and Gender Equality. But some of them have a deeper meaning. For example, the one that I think is very important, Life Below Water, refers to different things happening to our oceans, which also leads to some very harsh consequences.
These goals are very important today because they will ultimately lead to Sustainable Development and many of the crises currently going on in the world (e.g., global warming, civil wars, et cetera).
But these goals are very vague are not they; they can mean different things to different people. Therefore, the UN also made certain numerical goals under each SDG (like under SDG 14, Life Below Water, there is a numerical target, like 14.1, reduce marine pollution).
In SDG 14: Life Below Water, there has been no progress made in reducing the number of exploited fish, which is a problem. However, the amount of marine territorial water that has been protected has increased by around 25% in countries such as Mexico and Brazil. Otherwise, SDG 14 has been somewhat ignored a bit compared to the other SDGs, even though it is a very important one.
In theory, I believe that all the SDGs are important. However, I believe that some of them cannot be solved as well from a local perspective (e.g., no poverty and zero hunger). However, we can do something to help in each SDG such as:
- Providing food for zero hunger
- Having easier access to education for quality education
- Persuading people to install solar panels for affordable and clean energy.
- Do regular rubbish ups for sustainable cities and communities, climate action and life on land.
- Oxygenating the surrounding rivers and getting rid of the dangerous blue-green algae in there for life below water
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals made by the UN are an important factor, if not THE most important factor in reaching Sustainable Development.
I chose to focus my project on SDG 14: Life Below Water because it is an important factor that can also be applied in a local context. I believe this is an important SDG because of many reasons. Firstly, we must look after our oceans and other water body because its covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and is a habitat for over 230 000 species. It also helps many other species, including humans. It produces 50 – 80% of the oxygen you are breathing right now.
My group firstly decided to focus on the Canning River. It was at this point that we emailed Creec, a local organization that looks after the Canning River. We received some information through Creec and other research to find some problems within the Canning River. The river had increased salinity, blue-green algae, and mosquito problems. We then searched for a solution to our problem. We eventually came up with a solution, the Weeping Paperbark tree. It was a tree that generated sap that got rid of mosquitoes, which decreased the number of blue-green algae as well, which also led to a decrease in salinity. It was at this point we partnered with the Friends of Bull Creek for our project as well. It was at this time we had to think over our plan because of a short time frame.
We then moved on to thinking about improving our college swale. We got Wendy from Friends of Bull Creek to come over and have a look where she suggested we work on Bull Creek instead.
We then organized a planting day at Bull Creek where we invited multiple volunteers (17 people in total) over to Bull Creek to take part. We managed to locate some trowels and gloves for everyone and collectively managed to plant over 250 plants during the 2 hours we had. We hopefully think to come back to see the progress of the plants and how it has positively impacted the environment, specifically the creek. We hope to pass this along to either Friends of Bull Creek or Sustainability Club, or both.
In the end, I think we produced a successful project which has positively impacted the environment. If we had too though, we could have still improved our project. If we had pre-planned our project a bit more, we could have organized more planting, in a more suitable are with more volunteers and resources.
We would like to thank these people for their help with the project:
- Wendy and the friends of Bull Creek
- All the volunteers who came down on the day
- All the teachers who came down on the day
- Mrs Donnelly for helping us throughout the entire process