World Environment Day (WED) is a day that stimulates awareness of the environment and is on the 5th June. It was the day that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. The first World Environment Day was on 1973. World Environment Day is hosted every year by different cities in various countries with a different theme each year.
This year being the UN international year of forests, the theme was no different. It emphasized the conservation of forests and urged nations to increase their forest cover. We at A Rocha Kenya participated in the celebrations in various ways. We spent the previous day doing lots of tree planting at the Mzizima primary school where we planted over 800 tree seedlings which we had donated together with the Kenya Forest Service.
(Kenya Forest Service watering a recently planted tree)
(Naomi, Env. Ed Intern, and Bimbo, ASSETS staff, planting a tree)
We then took a walk through the Mida Creek together with the guest of honour the Provincial Commissioner of Coast province and guests from NEMA. The creek helps the organisation to raise funds to support the education of students living around the Arabuko Sokoke forest through our ASSETS programme.
Later on we joined the celebrations with the local schools and community at Mida Primary school where we also planted some trees.
(Students from Mida school singing a song for the environment)
Naomi (Environmental Education intern with A Rocha Kenya at Mwamba Field Study Center)