The blue planet we all live is unique in the universe. It is also fragile and in need of our protection. The current Covid-19 pandemic is also threatening this planet. In this context, with support from Earth Day Network (EDN), the global coordinator of Earth Day events, International Fund for China’s Environment (IFCE), together with The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) held an online event to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day in China.

The theme of Earth Day 2020 is “Rising Voice for the Nature” that aims at engaging more citizens with the knowledge of the biological species and rising awareness of the importance of biodiversity conservation. Celebrities in arts and leading environmental NGOs in China joined to inspire the public and call for actions to reduce climate change and protect the nature.

Before April 22^nd , IFCE first listed fifty endangered animals, twenty rare plants and some songs concerning natural conservation on the website. To engage, the public can choose multiple ways including drawing, singing or have a talk sharing their knowledge of the species they pick, then making videos. After that, they share their videos/posts on the social platforms such as Weibo, Kuai-shou, Wechat, Tiktoo etc to have more people get involved and educated.

The organizers invited many celebrities to join this online Earth Day 2020 event. These celebrities expressed their blessings for the Earth by handwriting cards, recording videos, sending posts, interacting with fans, etc.

Among all these celebrities, the young musician Ouyang Nana, a youth idol and selected as Ambassador of Earth Day, posting a video, in which she’s writing thank-you card to Earth to express her thankfulness and encourage the public for protection, with the background of cello music played by herself. This video went on Weibo and received 440,000 views and was widely shared among fans on the very first day.

Ouyang Nana’s Earth Day post

 

Another selected Ambassador of Earth Day, who is a famous singer and musical actor Ayunga, expressed his deep feelings for the grassland and sincere praise for nature with a Mongolian folk song. His singing video went on Weibo and received more than 3 million hits and 130,000 comments. Many fans followed suit and posted their own drawings on species and singing.

Ayunga conveys the blessings for Earth Day with a Mongolian folk song

 

The famous Chinese actor Shawn Dou shared his photos of hiking and rock climbing on Weibo to celebrate the Earth Day. As an outdoor sports lover, he says he feels closer to the nature when he’s hiking and climbing in the wild. The post has attracted more than 10,000 likes instantly.

Shawn Dou climbing the Gobi to support Earth Day 2020

Fans of Ayunga actively participated in the education program of species diversity

 

In addition to them, many other celebrities in performing arts and sports also actively participated in the event, including the well-known actress Qinqin Jiang; Ke Hu, who are both regarded as an actor and a "Supermom" ; youth idol Chi Yao; and the singer originally from Yunnan province, Jingxi Zhu; distinguished singer Lida Wang, famous cellist Yibing Chu, soprano singer Qianqian Liao,; well-known musician Shanbei Jiang; professional snooker Wenbo Liang; soccer player Xiaofeng Geng; social media celebrity Xiangjun Wang. All of them called on citizens to participate in environmental protection and care more for the earth.

 

In addition to the celebrities, a number of domestic environmental NGOs also actively joined and supported this event. The organizations include

 

• Green Hunan;
• Science periodical "Knowledge is Power";
• ActAsia;
• Beijing Air Now;
• Pixelite;
• Golden Bird Island;
• Green Home Environmental Science Research Center;
• Airman;
• Beijing Given Green International Cultural Center;
• Faced with the Ocean Environmental Protection Corporation;
• Fujian Greenhome Environmental Friendly Center;
• Yunnan Natural and Cultural Heritage Conservation Council;
• Public Environment Research Center;
• Shanghai Science Education Promotion Center;
• Paulson Institute

 

The Chairman of Green Hunan Liu Sheng made a video and called for citizen participation on the Weibo platform and won much praise from the audience. Lin Ying, director of the Fujian Green Home Environment Friendly Center, said: "The new COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have brought tremendous challenges and disasters to our mankind, yet also made us more aware of the importance of building a community of human to protect ecological balance. Our destiny depends on our actions, so what can we do today?” Besides participating in online events, they also organized a symposium and established the eighth environmental monitoring station on the Earth Day. Senior environmentalist Wang Yongchen was planting trees with the children in Yongquanzhuang, Yuxian County, Hebei Province during this time, and also organized them to “plant” flowers and trees on a wall with the painting brushes.

Students from Weixian, Hebei Province Painted on the wall to celebrate the Earth Day

 

Zhou Jinfeng, Secretary General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, the co-organizer, also delivered a speech, calling on "Let us join hands to issue a further initiative on Earth Day to take actions to combat climate change and biodiversity protection, so that we can maintain the health of our home-the Earth, for us and our children and grandchildren, leaving them with blue sky, clear water and green mountains! ". Dr. He Ping, President of the International Fund for China’s Environmental Fund, appreciated all the participants and supporters of the event. He said that the pandemic was a bad impact of the climate change and response from our nature, we must take immediate actions to control pollution, reduce emissions, and restore the damaged ecological system to avoid the another crisis.

 

The online event "Rising Voice for the Nature " to commemorate "the 50th Earth Day" has received massive support from all walks of life, as well as network groups, social institutions, and major media, including People's Daily, Ecological China and Kuai-Shou platform, Du Hongting Design Co., Ltd and Beijing Lanhe Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., It had been a complete success! According to Sina's background data, on April 22, the topic “Earth Day 2020” received 27.04 million views on the Weibo platform, 133,000 discussions, and the highest number of readings reached 4.04 million per hour. Five days later, the views reached to more than 60 millions on the platform!

 

Twelve hours later , on the other side of the planet, politicians, scientists, artists, and senior officials, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, Earth Day founder Dennis Hayes, and others, together called on the mankind to unite together to deal with the crisis, on the Live event hosted by Earth Day Network. While the pandemic is still spreading, it is not easy for the people on the Earth to hold hands, but we all share the same view: We only have one Earth, and what we do now would determine our future.