As we await the make or mar COP 21 Paris agreement, let's take some moment to congratulate Angola who has been announced as the host of the 2016 World Environment Day (WED) celebrations in a joint announcement by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Angolan government.

According to the UNEP, "WED - the single biggest day for positive action on the environment worldwide, which takes place on June 5 each year - will be themed around the fight against the illegal wildlife trade. This is an issue of particular importance in Angola, where poaching is threatening efforts to rebuild an elephant population decimated by decades-long civil war".

Animal poaching has become a worrisome issue in the Southern African countries with her Elephant population rapidly reducing. The Angolan government are very concerned and are currently doing an Elephant census in addition to changing the penal code of her law to ensure the animal?s safety and really punish poachers respectively in the country which is the seventh-largest in Africa.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, "this year we have seen significant steps to combat the illegal wildlife trade, including the first United Nations resolution on wildlife trafficking, which called for it to be treated as a serious crime both nationally and across borders. World Environment Day 2016 will highlight these efforts in a country itself committed to eliminating this scourge. UNEP looks forward to partnering with Angola to raise awareness of the issue and accelerate the action that will protect species, ecosystems and livelihoods from extinction."

The theme could not have come at a better time with UNEP reporting that "the number of elephants killed in Africa in recent years is greater than 20,000 a year, out of a population of 420,000 to 650,000. According to data from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as many as 100,000 elephants were killed between 2010 and 2012".

Angola's Environment Minister Maria de Fatima Jardim in her speech said "Angola is delighted to host World Environment Day, which will focus on an issue close to our hearts".

"The illegal wildlife trade, particularly the trade in ivory and rhino horn, is a major problem across our continent. By hosting this day of celebration and awareness-raising, we aim to send a clear message that such practices will soon be eradicated."

This is really an issue for urgent concern as Africa is speedily losing her unique wildlife. Following the death of Cecil- the Zimbabwean Lion- earlier in the year, another Lion in Nigeria which escaped the park recently in Nigeria was killed by security outfits with reports suggesting that not enough effort was made to recapture the animal and bring it back alive. As the Angolan Environment Minister posited eradicating such practices is one that must be done with utmost urgency as we are running out of time to save these awesome species whose only sin has been to live in natural habitats.

UNEP still had some figures to paint the picture better, "across Africa, more elephants have been killed in recent years than have died of natural causes, and for forest elephants in Central and West Africa, the population declined by an estimated 60 per cent between 2002 and 2011".

As the government, UN bodies and all of us work to end poaching, a lot of awareness campaigns must be done to educate poachers on the huge and imminent dangers of the practice. This is vitally important if we want to preserve what nature bequeathed us and generations to come.

Nonetheless, I look forward to the 2016 World Environment Day celebration and the activities that will mark it knowing that TUNZA Eco-Generation will come up with a spectacular plan, as they have always done, for the day which we will all implement in our various countries. Start planning Climate friends!

Meanwhile, COP 21 ends tomorrow and the world is anticipating the new Paris agreement. Globally acceptable and legally binding are two features the agreement must possess. I hope it does.

Photo by: UNEP