World Environment Day is celebrated on 5 June. It has been an annual event since it was launched in 1973 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The idea behind World Environment Day is to ‘raise awareness, inspire change, and drive global action for a healthier, more sustainable planet’. Environment, or rather the environment, has a very broad definition: it comprises the air, water, and land on Earth, as affected by man’s activities. With such a wide scope, it makes perfect sense that a theme is chosen for each edition. For 2026, that is Climate Action.
There are thousands of organizations working in the field of environment. There are those working on the overall concept, such as UNEP itself or the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). There are also organizations active in a certain region as well as conventions protecting the environment. Climate and climate change are subjects which have been attracting increasing attention among civil society, as climate is such a dominating influence. Scientists and health experts meet with environmentalists to discuss current events and establish societies and conference series. Engineers want to do their share as well. Even grandparents are fighting to leave their grandchildren a better planet. After all, the environment we live in is something that touches every fibre of our being.
Apart from these broad, all-encompassing organizations, there are the organizations working in a certain field. The first big topic is ‘air’. It seems nearly a lifetime ago when scientists managed to convince political leaders around the world to act on the increasing damage done to the ozone layer, which protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. With the Montreal Protocol, close to a hundred man-made, ozone depleting chemicals were banned and with that ban, the ozone layer was gradually restored to a safer level. This intergovernmental agreement is still one of the finest examples of how collective action can result in a positive outcome for the entire planet. The call for action nowadays is louder than ever, with associations focussing on reducing air pollution worldwide. Even the aviation industry is moving towards a greener model.
‘Water’ obviously attracts hundreds of interested parties as well. Some focus on what should be present in oceans, rivers, canals and lakes all over the world, while others work on what is less desirable and should be urgently removed. Sewage or wastewater is one such problem. Another major theme is plastic pollution. Not so coincidentally, it was the topic of World Environment Day 2023 as well as 2025. Plastic is so omnipresent, it has entered every part of our lives, even where it is quite harmful. It is not just hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles and bottle caps floating in rivers and landing on beaches and blocking rivers all over the world. The tiny plastic particles of washing liquids and non-natural clothing pass unfiltered and enter the planet’s water resources, eventually entering not only the fauna and flora living in water, but altering the human body as well.
The third big theme is ‘land’. Land restoration was the topic for World Environment Day 2024. As with air and water, land is an incredibly versatile subject. It is the animals living on it and the flora thriving on it. Consequently, civil society abounds with organizations working on behalf of virtually every single living creature roaming the land: from elephants (African and Asian) to the tiny dormouse. The same accounts for plants. Experts cooperate on items such fungi, moss and roses. A very well-studied subject is everything to do with trees: from the tree itself to forestry. The importance of trees cannot be overstated: lungs of the earth; nature’s air conditioner; guardians of the soil’s stability and water reserve. Dendrology is the science and study of woody plants. A lesser known area of expertise is that of dendrochronology. To put it simply – dendrochronologists are the answer to the question: ‘what if trees could talk?’ Tree-rings not only tell a tree’s age. Every tree-ring tells a story. That is why biologists, climatologists and even historians and archaeologists join forces. Tree-rings reveal climatological events, display man-made or natural disasters and can even explain enigmas of the past. For example, the answer to why one of the earlier attempts to set foot in the Americas failed was found in the surviving trees of the area. These earliest colonists had long been suspected to have come ill-prepared, but dendrochronology disclosed that at the time of their arrival and for the next few years, the entire area was confronted with abnormal drought. This scientific field is now so advanced that a single tree-line from a simple log or a petrified thousands-year-old stump can be cross-checked and dated. The date of an expensive violin can be determined; so can the beam in the oldest part of an ecclesiastical building. Every tree-ring is unique.
In Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, the Ents were sentient creatures, talking and walking like humans but shaped like trees. As shepherds of the forests, they intimately knew the trees. In one scene of the book, an Ent, called Treebeard, lamented the destruction of an entire forest and cried: ‘Many of these trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost forever now.’ Trees have a voice of their own indeed. They can disclose the past and can give advice for the future. If all parties were to assemble at the table to discuss today’s environment, their position would be invaluable. Dendrochronology is the key to unlock their voice.
Issue #24 – June 2026