World Environment Day: Connecting people to nature

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Today is World Environment Day – a day set aside for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment.

What is World Environment Day all about?

World Environment Day, established in 1972, is celebrated annually to mobilize people and encourage the world to take ‘positive environmental action’. It is marked every 5 June, everywhere around the planet.

What is this year’s theme?

World Environment Day 2017 is hosted by Canada. The theme for this year is ‘Connecting People to Nature’. The core focus of this year’s theme is to mobilize people to ‘reconnect’ with nature and ponder on how humanity and nature are symbiotically linked.

How can you get involved?

Wondering how you can be part of the 2017 World Environment Day celebration? Here are some ideas for you:

For schools, teachers, and parents

As school owners, teachers and parents, you can celebrate the day by teaching and helping young children and young adults discover the nature around them. You can organize a small bioblitz in schoolyard or backyard and encourage the kids to draw and write about the nature they see around them. You can also take the young adults through some lessons about nature—check http://worldenvironmentday.global for relevant materials. You can share pictures and videos of the kids on social media using hashtags #WorldEnvironmentDay #WithNature.

For businesses and organizations

Corporate companies can organize a lecture for their staff about nature and its significance. They can also organize excursions for their staff to visit National Parks where they can feel and appreciate nature better. As part of their CSR, they can also sponsor less privileged kids to various Parks and Gardens to celebrate and enjoy nature at its best. Pictures and videos of the activities can be shared on companies’ social media platforms using hashtags #WorldEnvironmentDay #WithNature.

Universities and other higher educational institutions

Universities and other higher educational institutions can be part of 2017 #WorldEnvironmentDay by sharing World Environment Day digital campaigns with clubs and societies on campuses, doing environmental cleanups, organizing creative and scholarly debates around environmental issues, and so on. All the events can be shared on social media using hashtags #WorldEnvironmentDay #WithNature.

Individuals

The general public can use their social media platforms to share relevant messages and quotes about the environment and its importance using hashtags #WorldEnvironmentDay #WithNature.

Thoughts about the environment:

The world’s oldest trees are more than 4,600 years old.
When you throw plastic bags and other plastic materials in the ocean, it kills as many as 1 million sea creatures annually.
The amount of water on Earth is constant, and continually recycled over time: some of the water you drink will have passed through a dinosaur.
40 percent of all bottled water sold in the world is bottled tap water.
Forests, particularly in South America and Africa, are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years, but in the past 100 years, people have caused a great deal of damage. We have destroyed 80% of the Earth’s forest and 40% of the Earth’s tropical rainforests.
40% of the Earth’s waterways are undrinkable.
Rainforests have taken thousands of years to form but every second a portion the size of a football field is destroyed.