World Ocean Day is celebrated every 8th June as a reminder of how integral our seas are to life on Earth.
A United Nations initiative, Oceans Day was first declared in 1992 following the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit, which led to important climate change goals.
The Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) (that a group of our pupils visited in 2019) have invited us to join in their ‘Stand Up for Reefs’ pledge as a way of publicising World Ocean Day on 8thJune and to raise awareness of the importance of coral reefs. They made it very simple to get involved with as all that it required was for you to take a photo of yourself making the pledge.
The Geography department gave a lesson about the importance of coral reefs to the FY pupils in order to spread the word and the rest of the school were given the chance to participate in this pledge via their Heads of houses who were given information sent to us by CCMI.
It is wonderful that in spite of being so far away we can still help to publicise the message that CCMI are wanting to spread as widely as possible. It is always easy to think that being in the Midlands and so far from the ocean we cannot really do much to help, however, all attempts to reduce pollution, recycle more, eat sustainably sourced fish and educate others is always going to help!
To support this initiative our pupils and teachers have today pledged:
‘I am standing up for coral reefs and I pledge to consider the impact I have on the marine environment in my daily life, reducing my footprint where possible, to ensure we have diverse and vibrant coral reefs, and a healthy world ocean for the future’.
For more information please visit: https://worldoceanday.org/