Oceans conference closes with cultural evening and Creole buffet |09 July 2018

The Oceans Conference which was being held at the Savoy Resort & Spa last week ended with a cultural evening and Creole buffet hosted by the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) at La Misère on Friday evening.

The conference saw the participation of children delegates and their teachers from all over the world, including Seychelles, who were taking part in the first International Schools Debates hosted by Seychelles.

Since last Tuesday the young delegates have been discussing issues relating to the UN Sustainable Goals, particularly the one about oceans, where they had to come up with innovative and realistic solutions to address threats to the ocean.

The closing ceremony was attended by Wallace Cosgrow, Minister for Environment, Energy and Climate Change; Raymond Brioche, chief executive of the National Botanical Gardens Foundation (NGBF) which has partnered with the conference in organising activities and Karl Hansen, chief executive of the Trust for Sustainable Living (TSL) which aims to protect and manage oceans, seas and marine resources and Flavien Joubert, principal of STA.

“To have Seychelles hosting the international schools’ debates and the children’s conference is further recognition of the leadership role Seychelles has been taking among other small developing states and indeed advocating awareness of the blue economy concept,” said Minister Cosgrow, describing the week as a very fruitful one.

And to the foreigners, he said their time here has enabled them to discover our islands, culture and allowed them to share experience and network.

He said he hopes that the friendship established with their local counterparts bear fruit as he commended the teachers’ mentorship and guidance to the students.

Mr Hansen thanked the Seychelles for putting up such event while Mr Brioche said even for them organisers the week has been a learning opportunity where he, for example, got to learn about what the children plan to do to save our oceans.

“’We can save the world oceans, seas and marine resources by 2030’ was the theme for this year’s debate. It was a theme so close to home and so relevant to us as islanders. Dear students, custodians of our oceans, we can work collectively to save not only our oceans, but our planet as well,” said Mr Brioche.

Mr Hansen then announced that next year’s debate will be held in British Columbia, Canada. Registration starts in September this year and entries should be in by December.