Representatives of Coastal and Ocean Resilience, IUCN - ESARO meet President Ramkalawan   |23 March 2022

Messrs Sberna and Anukur with President Ramkalawan yesterday at State House (Photo: Joena Meme)

Thomas Sberna, Regional Head - Coastal and Ocean Resilience, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Luther Anukur, Regional Director for IUCN Eastern and Southern Africa (ESARO) paid a courtesy call on President Wavel Ramkalawan yesterday morning at State House.

“The purpose of their visit was to meet the President to discuss the great initiative that we have called the Great Blue Wall. This initiative will bring together small island states to work together, to bring to scale the ambition of addressing the issues of climate change in the island states. The Great Blue wall is broader and much more encompassing. It is looking at the main lands by the ocean and the small island states,” explained Mr Anukur.

The next steps that will follow will be a technical meeting bringing together the various states to look at the detail of developing and what it takes to build up the Great Blue Wall.

“The second is how we mobilise political support from political leaders in the region. We would want that to accomplish in a very short time and we want them aligned to the global events that are going to happen and we launch the Great Blue Wall at all those events,” added Mr Anukur.

The major purpose of the Great Blue Wall Initiative is to mobilise resources, to support national priorities and also to support the common priorities of the islands together.

Mr Sberna also shared that this initiative is to support the Indian Ocean region to attain its objectives in conservation and development of sustainable blue economy.

Vidya Gappy