‘Planet Ocean: Tides are changing’

 The theme of world ocean day 2023 is ‘Planet Ocean: Tides are changing’. Like past years the ultimate goal of world ocean day is to make people aware of how important the ocean is and why we need

to take action to protect it during that time. During this year they mainly focus on the action that can take for everyone to make a difference by supporting sustainable seafood, Reducing single time use plastics and advocating for the ocean protection policies. In this article, I want to give you an overview of the history of World Ocean Day.

The first World Ocean Day has been added to our calendar since 2008. The concept was originally proposed in the year 1992, at the ‘Earth Summit’ by Canada’s international centre of ocean development (ICOD) and the ocean institute of Canada (OIC). In year 2002, Officially Ocean projects were started after that in the year 2008, ‘World Ocean Day’ was officially recognised by the United Nations.

When we consider about the last three years themes of world ocean day,

2020 – ‘Innovations for sustainable Ocean’

2021 – ‘The Ocean: Life and Livelihood‘

2022 – ‘Revitalization: Collective actions for the ocean’

2023 – ‘Planet Ocean: Tides are changing’

Every theme is related to the Environment and humans because if the one

pillar out of control could be the reason for the end of another pillar.

The importance of world ocean day, a wide variety of marine life can be

found in the ocean, which occupies more than 70% of the earth’s surface as

well as the Ocean is the main source of recreation energy and the food that

we need. At the end, World Ocean Day is a reminder to every one of the

responsibilities and actions we can take as individuals. Ocean is the lungs of

our planet and a major source of food and medicine as well as the ocean is

the key area of our biosphere. As I have previously mentioned, this is not a day

for promotional campaigns, it is a day for aware people with the knowledge

and the impact of human actions on the ocean.

References

https://worldoceanday.org/blog/

https://www.un.org/en/observances/oceans-day

Written by

Asitha Erandika

Undergraduate, Department of Civil and Environmental Technology

University of Sri Jayewardenepura.