International Mother Earth Day 2024 : Date, Theme and History

‘International Mother Earth Day’ is celebrated every year on 22 April. International Mother Earth Day is also known as ‘World Earth Day’. The earth is home not only to humans but also to innumerable animals and plants. Today man is causing many kinds of harm to it to fulfill his needs. Due to this, today we are seeing many problems like floods, pollution, climate change, global warming etc.

Theme of International Mother Earth Day 2024:

• Every year ‘World Earth Day’ is celebrated with a theme. This year 2024 its theme is ‘Planet vs Plastic’. The objective of this theme is to eliminate the use of single use plastic and look for its alternatives.
• Whereas the theme of ‘World Earth Day’ 2023 was ‘Invest in our planet’.

History of International Mother Earth Day:

• The idea of celebrating World Earth Day was first proposed by peace activist John McConnell at a UNESCO conference in 1969. Initially, the purpose of celebrating this day was to honour the Earth.
• Earth Day was first held in California, United States on April 22, 1970. Twenty years later, in the 1990s, Earth Day went global. That is, in 1990, Dennis Hayes proposed to celebrate this day at the global level. About 141 countries participated in it.
• On 22 April 2009, the United Nations General Assembly by a resolution officially designated 22 April each year as 'International Mother Earth Day'. This proposal was initiated by the ‘Plurinational State of Bolivia’ in the United Nations General Assembly.
• The term ‘Mother Earth’ is used because it reflects the interdependence that exists between humans, other living species and the planet on which we all reside.
• Whereas in the year 2016, Earth Day was dedicated to climate protection. Currently, Earth Day's network spans 20,000 partners and organizations in 190 countries.

Importance of International Mother Earth Day:

• On Earth Day, millions of people come together to discuss environmental issues like pollution and its threats, deforestation etc.
• On this occasion, with the help of many programmes across the world, people are told about the dangers posed by the environment. People are made aware of the efforts to save the earth.

Objective of celebrating International Mother Earth Day:

• World Earth Day is celebrated every year to fulfill many objectives. Some of these are as follows:
  • To recognize collective responsibility to promote harmony with nature and the earth.
  • To raise global public awareness of the challenges to the well-being of the planet and all life on it.
  • To achieve an appropriate balance between the socio-economic and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity.