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Connecting people to nature is the theme the UN has chosen for the World Environment Day 2017. This is how the UN suggests we celebrate it. It “implores us to get outdoors and into nature, to appreciate its beauty and its importance, and to take forward the call to protect the Earth that we share”. But, as the UN website admits, billions of people living in rural surroundings do directly connect to nature. So, this is a call to the rest. That implies, in India it is an entreaty to about 30 per cent of the population living in urban zones. But the Union environment, forests and climate change minister, Mr Harsh Vardhan, took a step beyond the UN theme and said, “The real sentiment behind World Environment Day should not be restricted to a single day, but must pervade every moment of the day, till the World Environment Day next year.”