Living on land, as we do, it is often easy to forget our world is overwhelmingly covered by vast oceans, and those oceans play a major role in making it habitable. That was Canada’s thinking when they proposed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to make every June 8 a World Ocean Day, “to remember the life-giving role of oceans,” as the Fisheries and Oceans department of Canada says on their website.

On this day, June 8, in 1992, the first World Ocean Day was celebrated, an annual event that would increase in popularity as environmental awareness itself grew all over the world.

Since 2002, environmental organizations The Ocean Project and World Ocean Network have partnered with aquariums, zoos, museums as well as educational institutions to make the event global. In 2009 the UN officially recognized June 8 as World Ocean Day.