World Oceans Day 2009 – First Official UN Day For Ocean Awareness

It’s official, today is the first UN designated World Oceans Day. The concept for World Oceans Day was proposed at the 1992 Earth Summit and has been unofficially celebrated every year since then. 17 years later official designation by the U.N. was finally given and is considerate by ocean conservationists as a significant step in conserving and protecting our world’s ocean.

Each year the event organizers designate an official theme and this year they picked “one ocean, one climate, one future”. The offical website, TheOceanProject.com, explains;

The concept of a “World Ocean Day” was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The Ocean Project has been working closely with the World Ocean Network for the last six years to promote and coordinate World Ocean Day events and activities with aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations and agencies, universities, schools, and businesses. Each year an increasing number of countries and organizations have been marking June 8th as opportunity to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea.

With the World Ocean Network, The Ocean Project also developed and widely circulated a petition to the United Nations urging them to officially recognize World Ocean Day. With help from our Partner organizations, tens of thousands of people from all parts of the world signed online or paper copies of the petition. Your participation in all of this made a real difference!

While official U.N. designation is not going to change things overnight it is an important step in improving the health of our world’s ocean. Now we need to capitalize on this fresh momentum! We hope you will be involved in planning or participating in a World Oceans Day celebration near you in June.

For those not able to get off work to attend, google has created a few great visualizations to celebrate the wonders of the underwater world. Here is the link: World Oceans Day Visulizations by Google

And for Maritime History buffs it is also the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage on the sailing ship Onrust. The Smithsonian has the details HERE.