World Environment Day every year is observed on the 5th of June. This day is dedicated to celebrate, encourage awareness and environmental protection. According to the United Nations, the celebration of this day provides us with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises, and communities in preserving and enhancing the environment. The day was first remarked in 1974 in the city of Spokane in the USA.

HISTORY OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly established the World Environment Day on the first day of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Two years later, in 1974 the first World Environment Day was held with the theme ‘Only One Earth’. Despite the World Environment Day celebration being held annually since 1974, in 1987 the idea for rotating the center of these activities through selecting different host countries began.

HOW IS WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY CELEBRATED?

This day is celebrated by engaging governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY THEME 2021

‘Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.’ – these form the theme of World Environment Day 2021 on 5 June, the day when the United Nations seeks to focus the attention of investors, businesses, governments and communities on the increasingly desperate need to restore the Earth‘s ecosystems.A concern that is both urgent and existential. The recent events, from bushfires in Brazil, the United States and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa–and now, the coronavirus pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life in which they exist.

HOST OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2021

This year the baton is passed on to South Asian country Pakistan to host World Environment Day 2021. The theme for this year will be ecosystem restoration, with special focus on creating a good relationship with nature.

This year’s event will also mark the launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030. In the upcoming decade, the United Nations with the support of countries, partners, and people want to focus on prevention and restoration of the lost and degraded natural ecosystems to fight the impacts of climate change. The end of this decade is also the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals and the timeline that scientists identified as significant to evade the consequences of climate change.

TIMELINE OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY: 2010 TO 2020

‘Many Species. One Planet. One Future’, was the theme of 2010. Hosted in Rwanda, it celebrated the diversity of life on Earth as part of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity.
The world environment day of 2011 was hosted by India and the theme was ‘Forests—Nature At Your Service’.
World Environment Day 2012’s theme was Green Economy. The celebrations were held in Brazil.
World Environment Day 2013 was themed on the track of food, under the slogan ‘Think, Eat, Save’. The UN aimed to remind us that one third of all food produced fails to make it from farm to table, which means 1.3 billion tonnes of food, worth 1,000 billion dollars, are wasted. This amount would be enough to feed the 870 million people suffering from hunger around the world, as well as reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
2014 was dedicated to the sea, under the theme ‘Raise your Voice not the Sea Level!’ in order to raise awareness on the problems faced by island nations due to rising sea levels.
In 2015, WED was hosted by Milan, Italy, under the theme ‘Seven Billion People. One Planet. Consume with Care’. That year, WED was the most popular subject on Twitter in more than 20 countries.
‘Zero tolerance for the illegal trade in wildlife’ was the theme of the 2016 edition, hosted by Angola.
The 2017 edition was held under the slogan ‘Connecting People with Nature’ to highlight the crucial role we play in protecting the planet, to which we are closely linked and dependent on, with official celebrations that took place in Canada.
Whilst the 2018 edition, hosted by India, aimed to ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’.
In 2019, WED focussed its efforts to ‘Beat Air Pollution’ an issue chosen by China, a country deeply affected by this environmental problem.

World Environment Day as established is a day that as humans, dependent on this planet and its produce, it is important for every individual to pull his socks up and start caring for nature like the way she has cared for us the past 300,000 years. Let’s restore and give her life back this WED.