World Oceans Day 2020: History, significance and theme

at 12:39 pm

New Delhi (NVI): World Oceans Day is celebrated every year on June 8 around the globe to remind the people about the importance of oceans in the lives of human beings.

The day is marked by the United Nations to highlight the role of the oceans in everyday life and inspires action to protect and sustainably use marine resources.

In 2008, it was decided by the United Nations General Assembly that as of June 8, 2009, the day will be celebrated as “World Oceans Day” globally.

The concept of this Day was originally proposed in 1992 by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) and the Ocean Institute of Canada (OIC) at the Earth Summit–UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This theme for this year’s World Ocean Day is ‘Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean’. Innovation — relating to the introduction of new methods, ideas, or products — is a dynamic term and one that is fundamentally filled with hope.

In order to celebrate this day, people hold several events, seminars, rallies to raise awareness about oceans. But due to the coronavirus pandemic, celebrations this year will be held online.

The UN World Oceans Day celebration will take place as a virtual event produced in partnership with Oceanic Global.

Oceans serve as the world’s largest source of protein with more than 3 billion people depending on the oceans as their primary source of protein. They are the lungs of our planet, providing most of the oxygen we breathe.

World Ocean Day holds great significance as we discuss various methods to save oceans for our future generation.

The rate by which we are polluting our ocean bodies is alarming. Plastic waste, decreasing levels of water, impurities in water, and others, it is the greatest necessity to preserve and conserve our oceans.