Seychelles marks biological diversity day with tree-planting activity |23 May 2017

To commemorate the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDBD), celebrated annually on May 22, around 550 palm trees were planted yesterday morning at Sans Soucis.

This year the IDBD is being celebrated under the theme ‘Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism’.

The tree-planting activity was organised by the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change (MEECC) in collaboration with other partners such as the Ministry of Education, the Seychelles National Parks Authority among others.

Every year, the MEECC along with other partners organise activities in order to raise awareness on biodiversity and why we need to invest more time, money and energy in their conservation.

Students who form part of Eco School and Wildlife clubs were excited to save the environment by planting trees.

Adele Pillay from Mont Fleuri secondary stated that it is vital that all of us put tremendous effort to protect the environment.

“It is vital that we all come together and find solutions to protect the environment. Such activity contributes towards protecting our planet, and our future,” she said.

Also present at the event were principal secretary for environment Alain Decommarmond.

“The world is becoming more aware of the importance of conservation. Seychelles has done very well in terms of protecting our biodiversity, but more work needs to be done and simple actions such as this event is an example,” he said.

Seychelles biodiversity provides many ecosystem services that we benefit from. Many tourism activities rely on biodiversity or the services they provide to sustain the tourism industry and in turn tourism activities provide both direct and indirect opportunities to biodiversity conservation.

The accompanying photographs show highlights of the tree-planting activity.