Bonn, 4 June 2015 - World Environment Day (WED) being celebrated tomorrow, 5 June, is the United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years it has grown to be a broad, global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the ‘people’s day’ for doing something positive for the environment, galvanizing individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet.  The theme for 2015 is: Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.  

The 2015 global WED celebrations will be organized at the world famous Universal Exhibition, which attracts over 20 million visitors. Expo Milano 2015 will run from May 1 to October 31 and is expected to include over 140 countries plus a significant number of international organizations.

The activities undertaken by the CMS Secretariat include a visit by Capacity-building Officer, Francisco Rilla, to the Bonn International School where he will be speaking at the Student Assembly on the theme of migratory species with a special focus on wildlife crime.  The 200 or so pupils from Grade 7-12 and 20 of their teachers will take part in a quiz, with the chance of winning some CMS-related prizes.  No one will go empty-handed as posters, stickers and flyers with information about the Convention and the species it aims to protect will be distributed.

The winners of the first ever World Migratory Bird Day video competition will be announced.  Nineteen films were submitted and a public vote produced a shortlist of ten from which the three prize winners will be selected by a panel of jurors representing the various partners behind the WMBD campaign.

Other highlights of the global programme of events of interest to CMS include an exhibition of photographs of great apes that will be shown in Vienna organized by Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), GRID-Arendal Centre and UN Information Service (UNIS).  The Oscar ® nominated documentary, Virunga, which tells the story of the rangers working in the national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo noted for its population of endangered Mountain Gorillas will also be shown.

Marine debris and in particular the accumulation of tons of plastic rubbish in the oceans was a subject addressed at the CMS COP in Quito last year, where Dutch inventor and environmentalist, Boyan Slat, was one of the speakers at the opening ceremony.   Picking up this theme, a Youth Action Island Summit is being held in the Bahamas bringing together activists, artists, filmmakers, scientists, educators and youth to explore the question of how island nations will deal with plastic pollution in the 21st century.