Tuesday, June 8th is World Oceans Day and if you're not sure what that is or how to participate, we'll give you a few ideas.
World Oceans Day is a day to celebrate our beautiful deep blue bodies of water that connect us all around the world. It's a day to recognise the ongoing issues we have yet to find a permanent solution to, like plastic waste ending up in our seas. It's a day to stand up to our world leaders and tell them we want to see major action now!
Why Is This Day Important?
Sure, we humans don't live in the ocean, but our world very much depends on our oceans. Our oceans actually provide vital living components to us like clean air and water.
The ocean provides the majority of the oxygen we breathe, cleans the water we drink and helps regulate our climate.
Our plastic waste and neglect for our oceans are killing many of our friendly sea creatures that have been here millions of years before humans. By the year 2050, scientists have predicted that the plastic in our ocean will outweigh the fish. As they rely on the ocean for their food source, they ingest tons of plastic which sadly results in death.
How Can You Take Action Now?
Whether this is reading books, scholarly articles, watching documentaries, listening to podcasts or attending talks on ocean conversation, there are endless amounts of resources to help you gain knowledge on how you can help save our oceans.
Some documentaries you can check out to find out more about what's going on are
Sign The Petition
"Leading scientists worldwide have determined that we need to protect at least 30% of our blue planet by 2030. World Oceans Day joins with many organisations on this important initiative. By signing the petition you are telling world leaders that you want action too! Working together we can protect our blue planet home for all!" - worldoceansday.org
Events
Every year there are local beach clean-ups hosted by your community, or you can make it your mission to pick up any plastic or rubbish you see at the beach when you're there, which is Take 3 For The Sea's main mission.
Check with your local council for clean-ups, movie screening, talks or you can organise one for your friends and family! It can be as simple as watching one of the documentaries listed and have a discussion on how you live more sustainably.
Everyday Things To Do To Help
Change Your Diet - Fish are a finite resource and overfishing can accelerate the extinction of species of fish.
Say No To Plastic - If you're at a café or restaurant a small thing you can do is ask for a paper straw. Even if it's one straw, one straw for everybody is 8 billion straws. You can also bring cotton bags to the shops and opt-out of their single-use plastic bags.
Recycle Responsibly - Researching your council's recycling program can allow you to recycle materials properly. Soft plastics can be returned to Coles & Woolies via RedCycle, and Flora & Fauna have our Recycle & Save program for some items that's hard to recycle.
Together we can all play a small part in a large mission to protect our oceans. Our oceans' health is vital to our survival so it's up to us to keep it from hitting rock bottom.
If you want to read more about our ocean, check out these blogs...
Restoring Coral Reefs in Tahiti
