World Environment Day 2025 – History, Slogans, Quotes

World environment day is also known as the Environment Day, Eco Day or short form WED. It has been one of the great annual events for years which is being celebrated worldwide by the people aiming to protect the unique and life nurturing Nature on every 5^th June. World Environment Day speech brings out the urgency and importance of collective action in safeguarding our planet, fostering a deeper understanding of environmental challenges and the need for sustainable solutions.

World Environment Day 2025

Every year on June 5th, people all around the world celebrate World Environment Day. It’s a special day to remember how important our Earth is and to think about how we can take better care of it. For World Environment Day 2025, the focus is on a very important topic: “Combating Plastic Pollution.” This means we will all be working together to stop plastic from harming our planet. The Republic of Korea is the host country for this important event.

World Environment Day Poster

Also Check: World Environment Day Essay | Essay on Environment | Speech on Environment | Speech on Save Environment

World Environment Day History

The idea for World Environment Day came from the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. This was a very important meeting where world leaders talked about how human activities were affecting the environment. On that day, June 5th, the United Nations General Assembly decided to establish World Environment Day. The very first World Environment Day was celebrated in 1974 with the theme “Only One Earth.” Since then, it has grown into a global platform for raising awareness and taking action on environmental issues. Each year, a different country hosts the event and a specific theme is chosen to highlight a pressing environmental concern. This tradition helps keep environmental issues at the forefront of global discussions.

Why is Plastic Pollution a Big Problem?

Think about all the plastic things we use every day: water bottles, food wrappers, plastic bags, toys. Many of these things are used only once and then thrown away. But where does “away” actually mean?

• Landfills: A lot of plastic ends up in big piles of trash called landfills. These landfills take up a lot of space and can make the land dirty.
• Oceans and Rivers: A huge amount of plastic finds its way into our rivers and oceans. This is super bad for marine life – animals like fish, turtles, and seabirds. They can get tangled in plastic, or they might mistake plastic pieces for food and eat them. This can make them sick or even kill them. These tiny pieces of plastic are called microplastics, and they are so small they can get into everything, even the food we eat and the water we drink!
• Air Pollution: When plastic is burned, it releases harmful chemicals into the air. This causes air pollution, which is bad for our lungs and can make us sick.
• Soil Pollution: Plastic can also break down into small pieces in the soil, polluting it. This affects plants and the health of the land.

So, plastic pollution is a serious environmental challenge that affects land, water, air, and all living things, including humans. It’s a real threat to our ecosystem and biodiversity – the variety of life on Earth.

World Environment Day Drawing

Why World Environment Day is Celebrated

World environment day annual celebration campaign was started to address the huge environmental issues like wastage and losses of food, deforestation, increasing global warming and so many. Every year celebration is planned according to the particular theme and slogan of the year to bring effectiveness in the campaign all through the world.

It is celebrated to successfully get carbon neutrality, focusing on the forest management, reducing greenhouse effects, promoting bio-fuels production by planting on degraded lands, use of hydro-power to enhance electricity production, encourage common public to use solar water heaters, energy production through solar sources, developing new drainage systems, promoting coral reefs and mangroves restoration in order to get prevented from flooding and erosion including other ways of environmental preservation. Some of the objectives of the world environment day campaign are mentioned below:

• It is celebrated to make aware the common public about the environmental issues.
• Encourage common people from different society and communities to actively participate in the celebration as well as become an active agent in developing environmental safety measures.
• Let them know that community people are very essential to inhibit negative changes towards the environmental issues.
• Encourage people to make their nearby surroundings safe and clean to enjoy safer, cleaner and more prosperous future.

World Environment Day Activities 2024

World Environment Day, celebrated annually on June 5th, is the United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. While World Environment Day 2025 will focus on “Combating Plastic Pollution,” the theme for World Environment Day 2024 was “Our Land, Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration.” The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hosted the global celebrations for this important year.

This theme put a vital spotlight on land restoration, combating desertification, and building drought resilience. These are critical issues because a large portion of the world’s land is degraded, affecting billions of people and threatening our planet’s ability to support life. Land degradation leads to less fertile soil, less water, and impacts biodiversity.

Why was “Land Restoration” the focus for 2024?

• Degraded Land: Up to 40% of the world’s land is currently degraded. This means it’s less productive and less able to provide the resources we need, like food and clean water.
• Desertification: This is when fertile land turns into desert, often due to climate change and human activities. It affects vast areas and makes it harder for people to live and grow food.
• Drought Resilience: Droughts, periods of unusually dry weather, are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. Building resilience means making land and communities better able to cope with these dry spells.

The good news is that land restoration can reverse this damage. It’s about bringing life back to degraded land, which can:

• Improve Livelihoods: Help communities that depend on the land for their living.
• Reduce Poverty: By making land more productive, it can create economic opportunities.
• Increase Resilience: Make communities better able to withstand extreme weather events.
• Store Carbon: Healthy land and forests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to fight climate change.
• Protect Biodiversity: Provide habitats for plants and animals, helping to save species from extinction.

World Environment Day Theme and Slogan

Each year celebration of the World Environment Day is based on the particular theme decided by the United Nations to make the celebration more effective by encouraging mass people worldwide to hugely take part in addressing environmental issues on global scale. Year wise list of the themes and slogans of world environment day are mentioned below:

• The theme of the year 2025 is “Combating Plastic Pollution” / “Ending Plastic Pollution” (Host: Republic of Korea)
• The theme of the year 2024 is “Our Land, Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration” (Host: Saudi Arabia)
• The theme of the year 2023 is “Solutions to Plastic Pollution” (Host: Côte d’Ivoire, supported by the Netherlands)
• The theme of the year 2022 is “Only One Earth” (Host: Sweden) – This was a reiteration of the original theme from 1972.
• The theme of the year 2021 is “Ecosystem Restoration” (Host: Pakistan)
• The theme of the year 2020 is “Time for Nature” (Host: Colombia, in partnership with Germany)
• The theme of the year 2019 is “Beat Air Pollution”.
• The theme of the year 2018 was “Beat Plastic Pollution”.
• The theme of the year 2017 was “Connecting People to Nature”.
• The theme of the year 2016 was “Zero tolerance for the illegal trade in wildlife” (highlights the fight against the illegal trade in wildlife).
• The theme of the year 2015 was “One World, One Environment”.
• The theme of the year 2014 was “small island developing states” or “SIDS” and “Raise your voice, not the sea level”.
• The theme of the year 2013 was “Think. Eat. Save.” And slogan was “Reduce Your Foodprint”.
• The theme of the year 2012 was “Green Economy: Does it include you?”.
• The theme of the year 2011 was “Forests: Nature at your Service”.
• The theme of the year 2010 was “Many Species. One Planet. One Future”.
• The theme of the year 2009 was “Your Planet Needs You – Unite to Combat Climate Change”.
• The theme and slogan of the year 2008 was “CO2, Kick the Habit – Towards a Low Carbon Economy”.
• The theme of the year 2007 was “Melting Ice – a Hot Topic?”.
• The theme of the year 2006 was “Deserts and Desertification” and slogan was “Don’t Desert Drylands!.”
• The theme of the year 2005 was “Green Cities” and slogan was “Plan for the Planet!”.
• The theme of the year 2004 was “Wanted! Seas and Oceans” and slogan was “Dead or Alive?”.
• The theme of the year 2003 was “Water” and slogan was “Two Billion People are Dying for It!”.
• The theme of the year 2002 was “Give Earth a Chance”.
• The theme of the year 2001 was “Connect with the World Wide Web of Life”.
• The theme of the year 2000 was “The Environment Millennium” and slogan was “Time to Act”.
• The theme of the year 1999 was “Our Earth – Our Future” and slogan was “Just Save It!”.
• The theme of the year 1998 was “For Life on Earth and slogan was “Save Our Seas”.
• The theme of the year 1997 was “For Life on Earth”.
• The theme of the year 1996 was “Our Earth, Our Habitat, Our Home”.
• The theme of the year 1995 was “We the Peoples: United for the Global Environment”.
• The theme of the year 1994 was “One Earth One Family”.
• The theme of the year 1993 was “Poverty and the Environment and slogan was “Breaking the Vicious Circle”.
• The theme of the year 1992 was “Only One Earth, Care and Share”.
• The theme of the year 1991 was “Climate Change. Need for Global Partnership”.
• The theme of the year 1990 was “Children and the Environment”.
• The theme of the year 1989 was “Global Warming; Global Warning”.
• The theme of the year 1988 was “When People Put the Environment First, Development Will Last”.
• The theme of the year 1987 was “Environment and Shelter: More Than A Roof”.
• The theme of the year 1986 was “A Tree for Peace”.
• The theme of the year 1985 was “Youth: Population and the Environment”.
• The theme of the year 1984 was “Desertification”.
• The theme of the year 1983 was “Managing and Disposing Hazardous Waste: Acid Rain and Energy”.
• The theme of the year 1982 was “Ten Years after Stockholm (Renewal of Environmental Concerns)”.
• The theme of the year 1981 was “Ground Water; Toxic Chemicals in Human Food Chains”.
• The theme of the year 1980 was “A New Challenge for the New Decade: Development without Destruction”.
• The theme of the year 1979 was “Only One Future for Our Children and slogan was “Development without Destruction”.
• The theme of the year 1978 was “Development without Destruction”.
• The theme of the year 1977 was “Ozone Layer Environmental Concern; Lands Loss and Soil Degradation”.
• The theme of the year 1976 was “Water: Vital Resource for Life”.
• The theme of the year 1975 was “Human Settlements”.
• The theme of the year 1974 was “Only one Earth during Expo ’74”.
• The theme of the year 1973 was “Only one Earth”.

World Environment Day Quotes

Some of the famous quotes (written by the famous personalities) on world environment day are mentioned below:

• “The environment is everything that isn’t me”. – Albert Einstein
• “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools”. – John Muir
• “Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth”. – Henry David Thoreau
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. – Margaret Mead
• “We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment”. – Margaret Mead
• “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment”. – Ansel Adams
• “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend”? – Robert Redford
• “Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you”. – John Muir
• “Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble”. – Roger Tory Peterson
• “By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water”. – Aeschylus
• “If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either”. – Joseph Wood Krutch
• “They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse”. – Sitting Bull
• “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land”. – Aldo Leopold
• “After all, sustainability means running the global environment – Earth Inc. – like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital”. – Maurice Strong
• “Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”. – Aldo Leopold
• “You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life”. -Jacob Bronowski
• “People blame their environment. There is only one person to blame – and only one – themselves”. – Robert Collier
• “I can find God in nature, in animals, in birds and the environment”. – Pat Buckley
• “We must return to nature and nature’s god”. – Luther Burbank
• “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved”. – Richard Rogers
• “Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium”. – Paul Tsongas
• “Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don’t stop at a nation’s borders”. – Warren Christopher
• “I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities”. – Brian Mulroney
• “Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art”. – Barry Commoner
• “Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it”. – Barry Commoner
• “The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented”. – Dixie Lee Ray
• “Why has it seemed that the only way to protect the environment is with heavy-handed government regulation”? – Gale Norton
• “The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture”. – Gaylord Nelson
• “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed”. – Mahatma Gandhi
• “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another”. – Mahatma Gandhi