Earth Day festivities brought song and dance to the grounds of City Hall yesterday.

“Let us embrace our commitment to the generations to come by leaving them a safe and clean world on which to make their mark,” said environment minister Jeanne Atherden as she made Bermuda’s Earth Day official.

Begun in 1970 in the United States to demonstrate against pollution, Earth Day became a global movement in 1990.

Guests yesterday included the international goodwill group Up With People, which has 100 members in Bermuda to entertain and volunteer for a fortnight, and treated spectators to a musical performance.

Keep Bermuda Beautiful was also on hand for celebrations, and the group will be busy today from 9am until noon with its annual “spring clean” at 25 locations around the island.

Jonathan Starling, the executive director of the environmental group Greenrock, said Earth Day and green issues generally were “coming to the forefront of Bermuda’s politics and thinking”.

This year’s theme was “Trees for Earth”, he noted, commemorated earlier in the day when Ms Atherden planted a native olivewood in the Arboretum park.

Dennis Lister, the shadow environment minister, called on residents to “reflect on the value of trees and natural open space as we try to balance the need to develop and preserve nature”.

Mr Starling said residents with no open space of their own to plant a tree could reach out to the Department of Parks or the Bermuda National Trust.

“We know in Bermuda’s context that trees affect microclimates and encourage rain,” he said. “We’re certainly grateful to the parks department’s reforestation project, and hope to see it continue.”