After 10 years, Earth Hour returns to the Cultural Center of the Philippines, with myriad of activities leading to the switch-off events for 60 minutes starting at 8:30pm on March 24, 2018. In 2008, the iconic cultural center became the venue of the Philippines’ first Earth Hour switch-off event.
As a leading cultural center in the country, CCP has the responsibility to raise awareness and educate its audiences about issues happening in the Philippines and in the world, which include ecological challenges. Through arts, people can explore the relations between nature and humankind and understand the importance of biodiversity in their lives.
This year’s Earth Hour highlights include activity booths, exhibits and cultural performances by local artists to honor Mother Earth. Co-organized by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines, Earth Hour 2018, following the theme #Connect2Earth, focuses on the urgent need to care for our planet’s biodiversity amid the changing climate.
Using the official hashtag #Connect2Earth, this year’s campaign aims to harness the power of social media in promoting and sharing the “one planet lifestyle.” Participants to the Earth Hour are encouraged to share their stories and photos of how they are taking care of the planet’s biodiversity in the Earth Hour Philippines Facebook event page (http://bit.ly/EarthHourPH2018).
Earth Hour started as a symbolic lights out event in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and has since grown into one of the biggest global open-source movement for the protection of the environment in more than 7,000 cities and 180 countries. For the past years, it has attracted millions of people around the world, converging around major world landmarks, cities, and communities to hold switch-off events, as a commitment to help and save Mother Earth.
Through the years, it has inspired the “Beyond the Hour” initiatives among government, communities, businesses, and organizations. They commit to environmental advocacy such as low-carbon cities, renewable energy development, sustainable food production and consumption, forest and water conservation, and wildlife protection of endangered tamaraws, whalesharks and Irrawaddy dolphins, among others.
