June 8th is World Ocean Day and June 8th is also World Oceans Day. What’s the diff? Oh, there’s a diff. June 9th is Coral Triangle Day, plus, in our climate community spotlight, meet “Moms Clean Air Force.”
June 8th Is World Ocean Day, June 8th Is World Oceans Day, Too. June 9th Is Coral Triangle Day, Meet “Moms Clean Air Force”
TWOFER TUESDAY: WORLD OCEAN DAY AND WORLD OCEANS DAY
We’re here to hip you to three ocean-related, climate celebration days, two today and one tomorrow. Today, June 8th is World Oceans Day. But before 2008, it was known as World Ocean Day.So I’m gonna let’s begin at the beginning.
In 1992, Canada attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, part of a parallel event to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
The Oceans Institute of Canada presented: “OCEANS DAY AT GLOBAL FORUM – THE BLUE PLANET”. The program featured international experts, opinion leaders and other experts arguing for the oceans’ contributions to sustaining the Blue Planet. The end result was a proposal to declare June 8th “World Ocean Day.” Thus adopted, World Ocean Day was born.
It took a while, but in 2003, www.WorldOceanDay.org was finally launched to help promote the event and generate more global involvement through the dissemination of educational and actionable resources, ideas, and free tools for everyone to use to celebrate World Oceans Day. In its inaugural year, 2003, 25 events were held in 15 countries.
In 2016, the World Ocean Day Advisory Council was launched, with the goals of developing “World Ocean Day into a unique opportunity to connect and unite youth and others …or a healthier ocean and a more sustainable society.” WorldOceanDay.org even offers an ongoing series called Rise Up Webinars designed to educate youth on ocean themes. There are 13 currently. The most recent is “Ocean Conservation in an Urban Environment.”
Somehow, though, back in 2008, the UN decided World Ocean Day needed to be plural. And rather than simply change the name, they created an entirely new day of marine celebration…
DEEPER DIVE: UN World Oceans Day, FOWOD, WorldOceanDay.org, World Ocean Network
TWO-FER TUESDAY, PART TWO: WORLD OCEANS DAY
In 1992, Canada got the ball rolling on developing broad public awareness of the critical role the oceans play in maintaining Earth’s climate equilibrium, and World Ocean Day was born. Well in 2008, Canada did it again!
That year, led by Canada, the UN General Assembly resolved that 8 June would be designated by the United Nations as “World OceanS Day”. According to the UN, the need to add an “s” to an existing day of awareness had been reflected in the broad range of concerns expressed in 2008 by the UN Secretary-General. Those concerns included implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, marine biological diversity, the marine environment and sustainable development, climate change and ^ regional and international cooperation, among other things.
Apparently, the UN’s marketing department had seen how well worldoceanday.org was doing, and wondered, “What else could be better?”
So two virtually identical celebrations have existed on the same day, June 8th, since 2009.
The theme for World Oceans Day in 2021 is ‘The Ocean: Life & Livelihoods’. The aim of this year’s campaign is to “shed light on the wonder of the ocean and how it is our life source, supporting humanity and every other organism on Earth”.
DEEPER DIVE: UN World Oceans Day, FOWOD, WorldOceanDay.org
CORAL TRIANGLE DAY
The Coral Triangle Day was established on June 9, to celebrate and raise awareness of the ocean conservation and protection, especially on the Coral Triangle, the world’s epicenter of marine biodiversity.
The Coral Triangle day was observed the first time on June 9, 2012, as part of the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF) is a multilateral partnership of six countries working together to sustain extraordinary marine and coastal resources by addressing crucial issues such as food security, climate change and marine biodiversity.
Coral Triangle is a geographical term that refers to an area of over 1.5 billion acres of land and sea located within the territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. The Coral Triangle is a geographical term that refers to a roughly triangular shape of marine waters between the Pacific and Indian oceans.
It is considered as one of the 3 mega ecological complexes on Earth, together with Congo Basin and the Amazon Rainforest.
Why does this matter to us? Because the Coral Triangle is unique and important because it is home to the highest concentration of marine species on the planet. The Coral Triangle, often called “the Nursery of the seas”, is home to 600 corals or 76% of the world’s known coral species. It contains the highest reef fish diversity with 2,500 or 37% of the world’s reef fish species.
Coral Triangle Day is an open-sourced event, celebrated by individuals and organizations concerned on the Coral Triangle. 2021’s theme is “Driving Blue Recovery for a Sustainable Coral Triangle.” There’s a live webinar event held tomorrow, and a link to it is in at the bottom of the transcript for this story. Just surf on over to TheClimate.org/episodes and click on the link at the bottom of this transcript.
DEEPER DIVE: Coral Triangle Initiative, Coral Reef Triangle Webinar,
MEET MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE
The Climate Daily has shared with you our loyal listeners, stories from groups highlighting the importance of families taking action to combat climate change. Groups like Grandmothers Acting to Save the Planet (GASP4change.org) and Science Moms.
Here’s another potent mom group we’d love to share—Moms Clean Air Force. It’s a community of almost 1.3 million moms (and dads) united against air pollution – including the urgent crisis of our changing climate – to protect our children’s health. We fight for Justice in Every Breath, recognizing the importance of equitable solutions in addressing air pollution and climate change.
The group works on projects ranging from air pollution to climate change to environmental justice to toxic pollution. In other words, they understand the intersectionality of those issues. Moms Clean Air Force currently has chapters in 24 states and the District of Columbia. They also publish articles and have some fantastic educational material onsite.
SO WHY MOMS?
Because NOTHING CAN STOP THE MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE?!
Close. According to their website, “Moms have passion and power — an unbeatable combination. Moms will do everything we can to keep our children safe and sound. That’s why we are uniting to ensure that our children have clean air right now, and for their future. Oh and, because sometimes, being a good mom means being an active citizen.”
DEEPER DIVE:MomsCleanAirForce.org, MCAF Sign Up