World Environment Day 2016

World Environment Day is an international awareness or commemorative observance and is optional in the calendar.

World Environment Day began with the United Nations' growing recognition that pollution, damage to ecosystems and unsafe resource use cross national boundaries. The UN Conference on the Human Environment opened in Stockholm on 5 June 1972, gathering governments to discuss a common responsibility for the condition of the planet. Later that year the General Assembly adopted a resolution naming 5 June World Environment Day and another decision establishing the United Nations Environment Programme. The first World Environment Day was observed in 1973.

Over subsequent decades the observance became a platform for addressing changing challenges, including toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, desertification, waste and climate change. UNEP supports each year's theme and host activities, but the chosen theme should not be assumed to stay the same from one year to the next. The observance is a modern international civic initiative, not a traditional religious festival or the story of a single inventor.

Schools, community groups, scientists, businesses and governments organize education, cleanups, habitat restoration and policy discussions. Planting trees may help in appropriate locations, but long-term care, local ecology, reduced pollution and responsible resource use matter more than a one-day publicity event. The date is fixed every year at 5 June, while the official theme and host country should be verified separately for the particular year.

World Environment Day is intended to build public awareness and encourage attention to its associated global issue.

Organize education, local cleanup, waste reduction, habitat care and lasting environmental commitments; this is a civic observance, not religious worship.

Global UN observance every 5 June; annual themes and host countries change and must be checked for the selected year.