Nature Seychelles looking for more engagement with government |12 November 2021

Members of the Nature Seychelles delegation with President Ramkalawan

Nature Seychelles is looking for more engagement with government to help push further the environment agenda in the country.

It was the chief executive of Nature Seychelles, Dr Nirmal Shah, who made the statement following a courtesy call on President Wavel Ramkalawan yesterday at State House.

Dr Shah was accompanied by three of the five board members of the non-profitable organization – Antoine Marie Moustache (chairman), Mike King Harman (treasurer) and Ruby Pardiwalla (member).

The aim of the visit was to introduce the members to the President and also to discuss with him on ways and means non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country can help push the country’s environment agenda forward.

“The president knows that Nature Seychelles is among one of the biggest organisations working in environment and with a lot of successes globally, thus bearing reputations for Seychelles globally, so we discussed with him on possible future cooperation, on top of what we are doing now, between Nature Seychelles and government,” Dr Shah said.

He noted that there is a necessity for civil society organisations to contribute more to environment issues in the country but they have to be included in projects undertaken by government through the international funding like the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

“If we get included in these big projects we will be able to contribute more for the country,” Dr Shah added.

Dr Shah stated that the President has called on them to bring up to his attention any ideas, not specifically related to the environment, that will help push the country forward and that Nature Seychelles will be out to work on and develop new ideas in that respect.

Nature Seychelles is a non-profitable organisation established in 2000 with its headquarters based at the Sanctuary at Roche Caiman wetland.

Apart from the Sanctuary as headquarters, Nature Seychelles also has a base at Cap Ternay which runs the Locally Empowered Area Protection (LEAP) programme, a locally managed or community-based project involving the community and other stakeholders to co-manage marine areas in Seychelles, precisely in the Baie Ternay and Port Launay Marine National Parks in the west of Mahé, a reef restoration programme on Praslin and also maintains the Cousin Island Special Nature Reserves. 

Patrick Joubert