World Oceans Day is celebrated each year on June 8th. Officially recognised by the United Nations since 2008; on World Oceans Day people around the globe are asked to honour and celebrate one of our greatest natural resources, its importance in our lives and how each of us can protect it, no matter where we are.
And if you’re asking why we should celebrate the day, let’s remember it’s not just water from our water cooler that helps keep us alive, it’s also a healthy world ocean that’s critical to our survival, because it ‘generates most of the oxygen we breathe; helps feed us; regulates our climate; cleans our drinking water; offers a pharmacopoeia of potential medicines; and provides limitless inspiration’.
Last year World Oceans Day boasted 1,500 events held in 140 countries – these ranged from celebrations, cleanups and film screenings through to festivals, concerts and conferences; 5.5 billion impressions of #WorldOceansDay on Twitter and Instagram in the month leading up to June 8th; and 10,000 commitments made on social media to stop using single-use plastics in honour of the day.
If you want to show your support this year, you can do so in three easy steps.
- You can plan an event and download resources – there are wide variety of event ideas to choose from
- Register your events and activities
- Show your support on social media and make sure to tag #WorldOceansDay
Here’s hoping that the 2019 figures can outperform last year’s statistics – together we can make a difference! To quote arguably the greatest oceanographer of all times, Jacques Cousteau ‘The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.’
