Volunteers mark World Ocean Day with cleanups

Volunteers mark World Ocean Day with cleanups

World Ocean Day is celebrated every year on June 8.

It was first proposed by two Canadian organizations at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, in 1992 as a way to celebrate our shared oceans, and to raise awareness about the important role it plays and how people can help protect it. Take a look at how people are marking the ocean today.

In Brazil

People link hands along São Conrado beach for a symbolic group hug with the sea in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. The Route Brasil environmental organization called for people to gather for the event to draw attention to ocean pollution.

People holding hands line the shoreline of a beach, while waves lap the sandy beach.

(Bruna Prado/The Associated Press)

Bird's eye view of people holding hands standing on a sandy beach near the shoreline and they're holding hands to form a human chain.

(Bruna Prado/The Associated Press)

During the event, volunteers including these children pick up trash from São Conrado beach.

Two girls pick up trash on a beach in Rio de Janeiro.

(Bruna Prado/The Associated Press)

In Indonesia

An aerial view shows municipal workers collecting garbage, most of which is plastic and domestic waste, during World Ocean Day along Jakarta's shoreline.

An aerial view showing municipal workers collecting trash from a shoreline in Jakarta.

(Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)

A person hunts for recyclable items along a polluted shore in Jakarta.

A person searches for recyclable items on a beach along a shoreline that's littered with garbage.

(Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)

A bird is seen walking among the trash.

A shore bird scavenges amid a pile of garbage strewn along the shoreline of a beach.

(Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)

In the Philippines

Workers and volunteers pick up trash from the shore of the polluted Baseco Beach in Manila, Philippines. 

Workers pick up trash that's polluted with refuse along a shoreline in Manila.

(Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)

Workers and volunteers pick up trash littering a beach's shoreline in Manila.

Eloisa Lopez/Reuters

A woman fishes from a boat while trash floats in the waters off Baseco Beach.

A female fisher sitting in a boat in the waters off Manila.

(Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)