What they see, what we ignore: the campaign shaking world environment day

Animal eyes reflect the destruction humans ignore in a striking World Environment Day 2025 campaign from The Minal Thinking.

World Environment Day 2025 has come and gone, but one campaign refuses to fade quietly into the background. Created by the Indian agency The Minal Thinking, it continues to spark conversation far beyond the calendar date.

At the heart of the project are eyes—animal eyes that look directly at us. The gaze is piercing, almost uncomfortable, because within the pupils lies something unexpected: reflections of a world scarred by human activity. One eye reveals oceans clogged with plastic, another forests swallowed by flames. Elsewhere, land suffocated under concrete or hunters raising rifles, ready to pull the trigger.

Each image carries the same stark line: “What they see, what we ignore.” It is less a slogan than a mirror, urging us to shift perspective. By seeing the planet through the eyes of animals, we are reminded of the reality they endure because of our actions. And in that reversal of vision, we recognize something deeply unsettling—that the threat is not theirs alone, but ours as well.

This campaign works because it doesn’t lecture; it confronts. A glance that should feel ordinary becomes charged with accusation, asking us to account for what we’ve allowed. The message is unambiguous: if we continue down this path, the cost will not just be biodiversity or distant habitats—it will be our shared survival.

World Environment Day may be a single date on the calendar, but the campaign leaves us with an ongoing question: how long can we look away?