Happy Earth Day! 🌏

Dear Friends,

As we mark Earth Day 2025, we turn to nature not just as something to protect but as something to learn from. In her rhythms, resilience, and renewal, we find lessons in balance, care, and connection. Earth reminds us that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it, and with that comes a shared responsibility to listen, learn, and live in harmony with the world that sustains us.

Through stories, art, music, and shared experiences, culture has the power to rekindle our relationship with the planet, and with each other. It can shift perspectives, awaken empathy, and remind us that we are not separate from nature, but part of it.

This Earth Day, we celebrate a growing global connection harnessing the power of music, art, and storytelling to truly listen to nature, and respond with care. Across borders and culture, people are coming together to reimagine our relationship with the planet, grounded in empathy, connection, and a shared sense of responsibility towards a Global We.

NATURE’s Comeback Tour: Earth Day Gets a New Soundtrack with Sounds Right

In celebration of Earth Day 2025, Sounds Right returns with powerful momentum: 36 artists from around the world have released new tracks featuring nature as their collaborator, generating royalties for nature conservation.

From the rhythmic pulse of crashing waves and birdsong to the subtle stirrings of forest canopies and the haunting echoes of wildfires, these tracks blend the emotional language of music with the living voice of our planet. By weaving natural soundscapes into their songs, artists deliver a powerful message: nature is a source of inspiration, and a collaborator in need of protection. This compelling collection invites listeners to reconnect with the Earth, one note and stream at a time.

To mark the occasion on Earth Day, UN Live hosted a launch event at VEGA, the iconic music venue in Copenhagen, bringing together artists, partners, and changemakers to explore new ways of engaging with NATURE, through sound, science, music, and storytelling. The event featured live performances from Nebulah, Bye Bye Brenda, and Aura, alongside conversations with voices from Concito, the Natural History Museum, Turning Tables, Spotify, AKQA, Vesterbro Kunst og Kultur, and more.

With the sounds of nature woven into every track, the artists showed nature is an active collaborator and a creative partner. The event emphasized collaboration, urging attendees to reflect on their role in this global movement and participate on upcoming activities such as #naturesings.

Media Highlights:

• Forbes - Global Artists Come Together To Put Nature On The Stage Through Music

• Spotify - Celebrate Earth Day with New Music Featuring the Sounds of Nature

• Business Green - Sounds Right: Musicians amp up nature conservation support for Earth Day

• Music Week - More than 30 artists release new music with Nature for Earth Day 2025

• NPR - Meet the artists behind the UN’s second annual nature sounds mixtape

• The Times of India - Armaan Malik: 'What In The World’ is a call to pause, reflect & reconnect with the world

Health in Humanity through a Global We

The Global We initiative brings people together across cultures, borders, and lived experiences. It has become a powerful platform for dialogue, creativity, and collective action, breaking barriers and fostering a sense of belonging - a Global We.

On 7 April, Global We proudly celebrated World Health Day across our portal network. We brought together healthcare professionals and holistic healers for a powerful conversation on the integration of indigenous and traditional health practices with the future of modern healthcare.

Together, our guests discussed existing models that bridge these worlds and discussed innovative pathways to preserve traditional wisdom within modern systems, ensuring it continues to thrive alongside scientific advancement.

Even in our hospitals, rather than bombard patients with medication, we can use lifestyle, therapies, acupuncture to make sure they do not just go home healed, but they go home whole.
Dr. Tolulope Oluwayemisi Fashola

How do you imagine a future that is flourishing?

This was the question proposed to people across locations from Bengaluru, India to Colorado, USA in the Global We portals during the UN General Assembly 2024. The facilitated conversation was created in support of ‘The Future Thanks You’ campaign – a Verified for Climate campaign by the United Nations and Purpose, in collaboration with Museum for the United Nations – UN Live. 

The conversation looked at how the future would look at work, in our communities and in their local environments. The imagination of people took us to places of technological advancements such as flying cars and teleportation, and mostly it came down to human connection and coordination with nature.

You are at work, what is your work day like?

“I would work with people from all over the world. We would celebrate how we're the same and how we're different. Nobody would really feel stifled or less than, we would all feel honored in the space that we take up.”

• Juli Jean, Colorado

“My work is more accessible, it is warmer, and it is more understandable.”

• Xaneri Merino Damián, Mexico City, Mexico  

You’re at home, you look out your window and what do you see?

“Ultimately, I see a kinder world. I see a world where every individual in every species and their well-being is considered into making policies and legislation that are truly for the collective good.”

• Sumanth Bindumadhav, Bengaluru, India 

“I hear tons of different languages outside of my window. We have progressed in a way where we can all understand each other's language without actually having to speak it, so we can still retain our languages and the things that bring us close to home, but yet we can understand each other, we can connect, we can have sort of this beautiful shared language.”

• Ashley Cornelius, Colorado, USA

What ideas, actions and inventions exist that make your community a better place?

“Education is no longer a systematics platform but more of a give and take place where people come and share real life experiences. You share your day-to-day life experiences because no two homes are ever the same.”

• Tebogo van Rensburg, Johannesburg, South Africa  

“It's this idea of how you take care of each other and that mental health is sourced by the connections in your relationships, when you need something, folks care for you.”

• Ashley Cornelius, Colorado, USA 

“Finally the people who have the money put it in the hands of those impacted by the devastation processes and the climate crisis.”

• Geraldo Varjabedian, São Vicente, Brazil 

What we are reading

🔗 Natalie Burns on Leading with Empathy – Creative Boom interviews Natalie Burns on how empathetic leadership can break stereotypes and foster inclusive, human-centered creative cultures that resonate and connect.

🔗 What Makes Someone Truly Belong in a Country? – Pew Research explores global perspectives on national identity and belonging, revealing how views vary on factors like language, birthplace, and cultural practices.

🔗 “The Colour of My Skin Didn’t Matter” – Black Artists in Postwar Paris – The Guardian reviews a powerful exhibition spotlighting Black artists who found creative freedom in postwar Paris, reframing narratives of identity, migration, and belonging.

What we are watching and listening to

🔗 Balada Borracha by Quantic & Nidia Góngora – In this vibrant collaboration, Quantic and Nidia Góngora blend traditional Afro-Colombian rhythms with contemporary beats, offering a soulful celebration of culture, resilience, and musical heritage.

🔗 Sounds Right Podcast: Malcolm Gladwell on Listening, Belonging & the Unexpected Power of Nature – In this episode, Malcolm Gladwell reflects on how listening to people, places, and the natural world can reshape our understanding of belonging, challenge assumptions, and open unexpected pathways to empathy and connection.

🔗 The Nature Of Podcast: Esther Perel on Connection, Loneliness & the Ecology of Relationships - In this episode, psychotherapist Esther Perel explores how our relationships mirror the natural world, delving into the dynamics of modern loneliness, the importance of interdependence, and how embracing nature's rhythms can deepen our connections with ourselves and others.