International Mother Earth Day

Every year, we celebrate International Mother Earth Day and we reaffirm our commitment to promoting harmony with nature to achieve a just, sustainable, and prosperous society.
 
We must work together to protect the planet and ecosystems, which affect every aspect of human life. We must prioritize the sustainable use of planetary resources when pursuing industrial growth but notably in food production and agriculture. We need to protect biodiversity in our climate action efforts, industrial practices, and urban expansion.
 
Mother Earth is urging a call to action. The environment is suffering—oceans filling with plastic and turning more acidic, extreme heat, wildfires, and floods, as well as a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season—all these affect millions of people. We are on the brink of existential threat.
 
The earth is considered a living being and it is the provider of everyone’s survival. Plants often have no time to grow as nature intended and enrich them properly with nutrient goodness from Mother Earth.
 
The importance of Mother Earth is to save it. The environment becomes highly important as it provides us with food and water to sustain life. Our well-being solely depends on this planet. As it sustains all living beings, it is our sacred responsibility to take care of it.
 
The theme for Mother Earth Day 2022 is 'Invest in Our Planet'.
 
The UN General Assembly recognized April 22 as International Mother Earth Day through a resolution adopted in 2009.
 
The roots of the observance go back to the 1970s when environmental protection was not yet a priority of the national political agendas.
 
The UN Conference on the Human Environment 1972 in Stockholm marked the beginning of global awareness of the interdependence between people, other living species, and our planet, as well as the establishment of World Environment Day on June 5 and the UN Environment Program.
 
In 1992, Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the first major conference in which Sustainable Development was the main issue discussed by member states.
 
From then on, all efforts to conserve the environment experienced exponential growth: the Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002; the declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Planet Earth; the UN official Mother Earth Day Declaration; Rio+20—resulting in a focused political outcome document, which contains clear and practical measures for implementing sustainable development—and recently, the Climate Action Summit 2019 and COP25, both focusing on the achievement of the Paris Agreement.
 
The UN explains that the idea of 'Mother Earth' is used because it 'reflects the interdependence that exists among human beings, other living species, and the planet we all inhabit.
 
The United Nations marks the day through the Harmony with Nature initiative, a platform for global sustainable development that celebrates annually an interactive dialogue on International Mother Earth Day.
 
Last year, Pope Francis commemorated Mother Earth Day with a video message. He appealed to world leaders to "act with courage, work with justice and always tell people the truth so that people know how to protect themselves from the destruction of the planet, how to protect the planet from the destruction that many times we trigger."
 
So, when we observe International Mother Earth Day, we all have something to teach and learn by working with civil society, the private sector, academia, and the media. Together with all, we will implement the Sustainable Development Goals in harmony with nature.
 
This is a responsibility to reaffirm our commitments to protect Mother Earth. We have to ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.
 
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken,” said Leo Tolstoy, a Russian writer.