World Environment Day

Thousands of people celebrated World Environment Day on Sunday, an occasion to celebrate the achievements we’ve made so far towards protecting the environment and to think about the actions we can take in order to do more .

World Environment Day (WED) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. Since then, WED has been celebrated all over the world in many ways, including concerts, tree planting, clean-up campaigns, street rallies and bicycle parades. Every year WED focuses on one particular theme and this year’s campaign supported the UN’s International Year of Forests with the theme, Forest: Nature at Your Service, which underlined the link between the health of forest ecosystems and our quality of life.  

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen and Oscar nominee Don Cheadle have been this year’s WED testimonials. They launched a challenge aimed to motivate people to take action. As a matter of fact for every green activity registered on the WED website in Bündchen’s name, she vowed to plant one tree in India, while Cheadle said he would plant two trees for every green activity registered under his name.  Since the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) chose India as the host country for World Environment Day 2011, Bündchen and Cheadle’s challenge was taken up by two Bollywood stars: Rahul Bose and Priyanka Chopra.

If you missed the WED events around the world,  there are still some important things you can do in your everyday life to protect the world’s forest: save paper, think before you print, use reusable bottles, explore the forests around you, learn about them , spread the word and, most important, love them.

Learn more:  http://www.unep.org/