On June 5, the WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY is celebrated worldwide:

For this year’s World Environment Day, millions of people around the globe will answer the call to ‘connect with nature,’ celebrating the day by going to a park or heading to the beach and taking forward the call to protect the Earth that we share.

World Environment Day is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action and takes place every 5 June, with this year’s host country Canada at the centre of celebrations around the planet.

There will also be some World Environment Day related outreach activities in Brussels in the month of June, for which we will keep you updated.

World Environment Day is for everyone, everywhere: whether you live in a city or the countryside, in the developed or developing world, in the invigorating chill of cold regions or the sultry heat of the tropics. Since it began in 1972, global citizens have organized many thousands of events, from neighbourhood clean-ups, to action against the illegal trade in wildlife, to replanting forests.

“We can enjoy nature year-round, but World Environment Day is when the whole world comes together to celebrate our beautiful planet,” said Erik Solheim, the head of UN Environment. “It reminds us of what a treasure nature is, and encourages us all to protect and appreciate our environment.”

Starting today, UN Environment and the Government of Canada are calling on citizens all over the world to think about how we depend on nature, and to find fun and exciting ways to experience and cherish that vital relationship.

The options for how to mark World Environment Day are vast. This year, why not follow the example of the citizens of Mumbai, India and organize a mass clean-up? Canada is offering free entry to its national parks and marine conservation areas. So why not take your friends, family or colleagues and discover a wilderness area near you?

Your activity doesn’t have to take place on 5 June itself. UN Environment, for instance, will soon begin testing your knowledge and raising your appreciation of a healthy environment with competitions and online quizzes and provide a whole menu of ideas to help you celebrate the day.

In the age of asphalt and smartphones and among the distractions of modern life, connections with nature can be fleeting. But with your help, World Environment Day can make clearer than ever that we need harmony between humanity and nature so that both are able to thrive.

Check the World Environment Day website (http://worldenvironmentday.global/theme) for details of this year’s campaign. You can sign up there to receive all of our updates in the run-up to World Environment Day 2017.

https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/unep/event/world-environment-day-5-june-2017

http://www.un.org/en/events/environmentday/

http://worldenvironmentday.global/en/about/connecting-people-nature