Faiths join voices to honour the ocean on World Oceans Day

Posted on: June 8, 2026 2:40 PM

Anglicans join their voice with other faith groups to advocate for protection of the oceans on World Oceans Day

Related Categories: climate crisis, Climate justice, environment, Lungs of the Earth, oceans

This World Oceans Day, marked on June 8, faith groups join their voices to advocate for the protection of oceans and honour them as a gift to humanity. Covering over 70% of the planet, producing at least 50% of its oxygen and providing a home to most of the Earth’s biodiversity, the ocean is a source of life and a lung of the Earth.

This World Oceans Day, Faiths for Oceans, formerly known as Faiths for UNOC3 (the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference), has announced its new name and renewed purpose as a platform to encourage continuous action and advocacy beyond specific meetings or events. Organisers say this year ‘marks a new chapter for us: building on the momentum of Faiths for UNOC3, we have reimagined our work as Faiths for Oceans, a permanent platform for faith communities to shape ocean governance for years to come.’

The Anglican Communion is a partner of Faiths for Oceans, an inter faith and ecumenical platform, which works to convene people of faiths on the important topic of ocean preservation and protection.

In 2025, the group gathered faith representatives at the United Nations Conference, where considerable progress was made to ratify the High Seas Treaty, which in January 2026 finally became a legally binding international law, meaning that areas of the deep ocean could be protected despite not belonging to any one nation. This was a powerful example of how people of different faiths can unite their voices for the common good of our shared home. The coalition continues to grow and advocate for the 30x30 target to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, among other initiatives.

In support of the mission of ocean protection as a key and valuable lung of the Earth, Faiths for Oceans has released several resources for World Oceans Day to help communities, organisations and individuals to celebrate, better understand and protect the oceans.

Resources to help faith communities protect the oceans

To mark World Oceans Day 2026, Faiths for Oceans has released a video gathering perspectives from different faith groups about this year’s theme: Reimagine. The video invites people of faith to reimagine their relationship to the ocean and recommit to its guardianship through the lens of faith. Anglican priest and environmental leader, the Revd Dr Canon Rachel Mash, joins Sikh, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu leaders in describing how faith communities are driving environmental change around the world.

Revd Rachel is the Environmental Coordinator of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, a Provincial Coordinator of Green Anglicans, as well as a member of the steering group for the ecumenical Season of Creation movement and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Faith for Earth Interfaith Women Council.

In this video, Revd Rachel reflects on how industrial overfishing and fossil fuel exploration and extraction do not align with the biblical vision of humanity’s responsibility towards aquatic creatures in Genesis. ‘We as human beings are overfishing on industrial scales. We are treating fishing now as an extractive industry… with deep-sea trawling that destroys entire ecosystems on the ocean bed.

‘In Genesis 1:28, God said this: “God blessed them and said unto them, ‘be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea.’” And we have often taken that [to mean] we are the masters of the oceans, and we can do whatever we want. And yet this verse reminds us that to “be fruitful and multiply” is not just for humanity. We have done a really good job at being multiple as humans, but also for other living creatures that we are called to allow them to multiply and in that way we will replenish the earth.’

Some people may find conversations around climate change theoretical or abstract rather than tangible and therefore challenging to engage with. In collaboration with Nature on Board, which equips business boards and decision-makers to represent nature’s interests in governance, the Coral Compass: Nature Testimonies from the World's Reefs has been developed to help people understand the impact of climate change and industry on coral reefs in a personal way.

These eight reef ‘testimonies’ are written as if the reef itself were speaking: a translation of the science into the reef's own voice, drawn from the work of those who have spent their lives studying it and grounded in peer-reviewed research and law. Across eight of the world's coral bioregions, each reef tells of its waters, the threats it faces, and the protection proven to hold for it, converging on five principles for ocean action.

In May 2025, Faiths for Oceans shared a policy primer titled The 30x30 Target, which explored why protecting 30% of the oceans aligns with the spiritual values of many faiths and traditions. This is still something faith groups, including Anglicans, are calling for and it is an informative resource to help understand the importance of the voice and role of faith actors in conservation.