Posté Mercredi 29 Avril 2009 par Véronique

Longitude 181 Nature, member of the World Ocean Network , is happy to announce :

The UN General Assembly resolves that, as from 2009,
"the United Nations will designate 8 June as World Ocean Day.”

8 June - World Ocean Day

“Caring for the future of the Blue Planet, you have made a difference”

This great success is the result of the joint worldwide effort of all of us over the last years, said Philippe Valette, co-president of World Ocean Network.

"World Ocean Day" was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and endorsed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO after 1998 International Year of the Ocean. Since 2003, with the support of the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands, the World Ocean Network and the Ocean Project have been working closely to promote and coordinate World Ocean Day events and activities with aquariums, zoos, museums, science centres, conservation and education organisations, NGOs and businesses around the world.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, President of Ocean Futures Society and Chair of the World Ocean Network Committee of Honour, prompted the first efforts to advocate World Ocean Day at the UN in 2003. Then all the endeavours to promote and celebrate the World Ocean on June 8 every year enabled the World Ocean Network to regularly report on World Ocean Day successfully increasing activities to the participants of the United Nations Informal Consultation Process on the Law of the Sea.

With the Ocean Project, the World Ocean Network also circulated a petition to the United Nations urging them to officially recognize World Ocean Day.

Now we are facing a new challenge: to use World Ocean Day at the best for public mobilisation on ocean matters.