WORLD OCEANS DAY
The celebration of World Oceans Day dates back to the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit. Here, a team from Canada's International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) proposed an annual Oceans Day to create a voice for the oceans, to empower those who live and work in coastal communities, and to strengthen the management and stewardship of the oceans.
What is Oceans Week Victoria?
Oceans Week Victoria is a volunteer initiative to bring our wider community together around World Oceans Day (WOD) to raise awareness and turn it into positive actions to protect and restore our shared ocean.
This means businesses, non-profits, schools, scientists, Indigenous groups, youth, residents and visitors, all taking part in a variety of events including film, art, music, exhibits, paddling excursions, beach clean-ups, and more.
Each year, the United Nations selects a theme to engage the global community. This year’s theme is “The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods—Shedding light on the wonder of the ocean and how it is our lifesource, supporting humanity and every other organism on earth.”
CELEBRATE AND EXPLORE
OCEANS WEEK VICTORIA
JUNE 6-13, 2021
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge and respect the Lekwungen-speaking Peoples on whose traditional and unceded territories we work, plan and play, and the Songhees, Esquimalt,
T’Sou-ke, WSANEC and other First Nations peoples whose historical relationships with the land and ocean continue to this day.
We hope and intend that this shared Oceans Week Victoria initiative will grow and develop in ways that are respectful and inclusive of all peoples and cultures who come together on the southern end of Vancouver Island.
A Sign of Lekwungen, one of seven carvings that mark places of cultural significance to the First Peoples in Victoria.
OUR MISSION
To build community partnerships and support local events and activities that celebrate World Oceans Day.
OUR MISSION
The ocean means many things to many people.
We eat from it.
We work and play on and in it.
It supplies most of our oxygen.
We get our weather from it,
no matter where we live.
And it contains somewhere between
500,000 and 10 million marine species.
We, and all life on this planet,
need a healthy global ocean.