The first celebration of World Oceans Day took place on June 8, 1992, following the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many countries had since celebrated the day annually to encourage the idea of sustainably using marine resources. The UN officially designated June 8 as World Oceans Day in the year 2008, to come into effect from the following year.

The theme of World Oceans Day 2020:

This year, World Oceans Day is set to be celebrated online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic under the theme of “Innovation for a sustainable ocean.” The primary objective of the event this year will be the “introduction of new methods, ideas, or products,” to break new grounds in safeguarding the health of the oceans and our planet.

The theme holds true with the upcoming UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development program which will help strengthen international relationships to spruce up scientific researches to connect science with the needs of society, according to the website.

According to the UN website, the idea of conserving marine resources has far broader implications. The UN says that the taxing public health risk of COVID-19 this year can well be addressed with the help of the “organisms discovered at extreme depths,” insisting that they can speed up the detection of the disease. The statement definitely jolts our conscience awake, reminding us how our mindless actions of polluting oceans have largely jeopardized marine life.

The UN calls the oceans “the lungs of our planet,” which supplements it with a huge amount of oxygen that we breathe. The organization underscored the dire need for saving our oceans because they are “a major source of food and medicine and a critical part of the biosphere.”

World Oceans Day 2020 quotes:

Here are some quotes about Oceans that get us to fundamentally rethink our relationship with marine life:

  • “The beauty and mystery of the ocean, fills our lives with wonders, vast beyond our imagination.”- M.L Borges, By The Sea.
  • “Looking out over the ocean you can see reflections of God.” - Catherine Pulsifer
  • “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” - Jacques Cousteau
  • “No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.” - Jacques Yves Cousteau
  • “The world’s finest wilderness lies beneath the waves.”- Robert Wyland.
  • “I wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life until I graduated high school. And even now, I'm still like, 'Maybe I'll just quit the biz and go to Santa Cruz and study marine biology and have my own research center in the Bahamas.' Yeah, I'm sure it would be just that smooth.”- Cobie Smulders.
Ocean Sands
Tides and ocean currents have sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into multicolored, fluted patterns. NASA/Landsat 7
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