World Environment Day June 5, 2025 – "End global plastic pollution"

Had me a dream ... of a plastic-free world, an elephant says: 
I came to this world half a century ago, led my eyes on a savannah, so generous, so bright and so full of life. I grew up in time with the earth, learned to listen to the wind, smell hidden water and remember safe paths. For it is true, they say elephants have great memories, don’t they? I say yes. I remember everything: ancient migrations, distant songs, vanished trees. You know, there are times when I need to stop and smell the roses Like the ripe fruits of the marula tree, sometimes a little fermented...Make me get drunk. Yeah. A sweet, harmless exhilaration, shared in the shade of baobabs and acacias, in these savannahs where the grass sings after the rain.

I have something I feel I need to share with you. For years, I've been encountering this strange thing everywhere... colorful, light, sometimes shiny... It flies, floats, rolls, clings to branches or hides under the sand. It has neither the smell of fruit nor the taste of grass. Yet, it's everywhere. I think you call it: plastic. I'm a little confused, I admit. Is it a gift? A strange offering? Do you cherish it? Then, why leave it? Why hide it in the bellies of fish, or under the feet of birds, in their nests? Is that what you call progress I've been hearing about for so long?

I heard that you gave World Environment Day 2025 the theme: "End Global Plastic Pollution." I am all ears, I truly am. Because if you're talking about a future without plastic, then you too, have understood, that this strange, yet so practical material is suffocating everything that lives. That what doesn't rot always ends up in the earth, in the water, in your dish.

This year, the world celebrates the 53rd anniversary of World Environment Day. More than half a century of you wanting to protect the Earth. Fifty years of summits, conferences, promises. I've seen them all come and go: delegations and speeches, conventions, treaties. Some have helped save species, preserve spaces, meanwhile, plastic has invaded even the ocean floor.

I'm not pointing at you. I'm just watching. I see you fighting, sometimes boldly but late. Trying to repair what could have been avoided. And I want to believe that this year, perhaps, you will listen a little more to the memory of elephants, and a little less to the sirens of disposables.

I, very often times, fail to understand your inventions. But I understand what I see. Babies dying for playing with bags. Swamps transformed into garbage cans. Birds feeding their young with bottle caps. A nature tired of carrying what won't disappear.

And then there are my tusks. Those great curves of ivory that you admire so much. We use them to dig the earth, mark our passage, defend ourselves when we have to. But for you, they were trophies. For a long time, they made me a target. Would you give away something in you? Then why would I? What good will our tusks do if there is a shortage of water, if the forest is dying out, if the soil is sterile beneath the plastic? I sometimes think of that place the elders speak of: the elephant graveyard. They say it exists somewhere, hidden at the edge of the world, where elephants go to die in peace, far from prying eyes. A quiet place, bathed in memory, dust, and respect. I sometimes wonder... even there, has that plastic found its way? Has it slipped between the bones and the roots? Perhaps this place still shows resistance. But if even this sanctuary were to be defiled, then where on earth could we possibly go?

An elephant. This is all I am. But I do remember. Clear rivers. Plains teeming with life. Forests where we walked without fear. If you, humans, can remember too, then perhaps this day would finally trigger a promising future and end threats.

And if, for once, you could use your memory as we did. Don't forget what you saw. What you lose. And what you can still save.