Every year on 5th June, World Environment Day is celebrated around the world, proclaiming the value of nature to the world. Since 1974, World Environment Day has been celebrated annually with the participation of more than 143 countries, involving governments, businesses, and citizens in solving environmental problems. This year, the theme of World Environment Day is “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.”. The global host for the day in 2021 to highlight the importance of ecosystem restoration is Pakistan.

World Environment Day was officially declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. That was on the first day of the Human Environment Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Accordingly, the first International Environment Day was celebrated in 1974, two years later. The theme of the day was ‘Only One Earth’. Although Environment Day has been celebrated annually since then, World Environment Day has been officially celebrated since 1987, based on one country per year. Every year on this day, people around the world are made aware of the importance of protecting the environment around us and the steps that need to be taken. It brings together governments, businesses, celebrities, and citizens of different countries.

According to the WED website, every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football field, and people have destroyed half of the wetlands in the last century. Although global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, by 2050, about 50 percent of the coral reefs will have been lost and about 90 percent of the coral reefs could have been lost. The theme focuses on healthy ecosystems that can improve people’s livelihoods, combat climate change and stop the breakdown of biodiversity. This World Environment Day will kick off the global mission to revive these billions of hectares.