President Faure captivates Sids roundtable at G7 summit |11 June 2018

President Danny Faure grabbed the attention of Canadian, island and other leaders at a roundtable of small island developing states (Sids) at the G7 summit in Quebec, Canada on Saturday.

The Group of Seven chair, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, invited ten island and other developing countries to join the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), Norway, the European Union and multilateral organisations in a special session on oceans.

He then held a roundtable of the four island leaders present from Haiti, Jamaica, the Marshall Islands and Seychelles to discuss Sids challenges.

Speaking last, President Faure shocked the meeting, which included Canadian ministers and multilateral organisations, with several large photographs of the damage plastic pollution and other types of marine litter from Asia and around the world are doing to Seychelles’ Aldabra atoll, a Unesco world heritage site, other outer islands and the biodiversity on them.

The leaders gasped and flinched at what they saw.

Seychelles and other small island countries already have enough of a challenge managing the waste that they produce, President Faure said.

However, they need assistance with handling the vast and increasing amounts of marine litter washing up on and polluting their beaches and coasts from way beyond their shores.

Everyone agreed President Faure had graphically made his point.