Gran Kaz staff clean up sandbank on occasion of earth day |26 April 2022

To mark earth day, Gran Kaz staff took part in a beach clean-up on the sandbanks near Moyenne and Long islands

Gran Kaz staff took to the sandbanks near Moyenne and Long islands for a beach clean-up last Friday in commemoration of World Earth Day.

With marine debris becoming an increasingly imminent issue, the sandbanks often fall victim to the trash washing up from our own as well as other countries.

The staff decided to spend their morning tackling this issue as part of their community outreach programmes. An initiative that they started last year to give a little more back to the community. The programmes so far have covered a number of different volunteerism areas from environmental, to social and animal welfare.

“We decided to start this programme as a way for us to give back to the community. As with the larger community, our little community of staff at Gran Kaz are diverse with varied passions and concerns. Some of our staff have a deep felt concern for environmental issues, others are all about animal welfare, we wanted to have a broad spectrum of activities under our programme, so that staff can choose the issues that speak to them the most, and feel good about being able to do something to rectify it,” said public relations (PR) and communications manager at Gran Kaz, Shama Amesbury.

For this particular activity, the staff decided to mark earth day by helping clean up the beaches along Moyenne and Long islands.

“Normally for earth day, there is an activity where people around the world turn off all their lights for an hour as a symbolic gesture to save energy, but as our staff work shifts and many would not have been able to participate in this we decided to take a different route. As a company we are environmentally conscious and responsible, Gran Kaz Victoria operates on approximately 40% solar energy, and we are currently in the process of installing solar panels in Bel Ombre too. As a community of people who work within the company, we wanted to do our bit as well. In Seychelles we are blessed with natural beauty, it’s our most prized possession. So naturally, we wanted to do our bit to keep it pristine,” added Ms Amesbury.

The staff collected a total of 10 bags of marine debris and post picnic rubbish on the day.

“Marine debris is a huge problem, particularly plastic with at least 14 million tonnes of plastic ending up in the ocean each year. It is so detrimental to marine life, we’ve seen those heart-breaking videos of turtles caught and choking in plastic, or fish with their bellies full of plastic. The ocean is their home, and unfortunately, humans are making it a death trap. Perhaps the most discouraging part is that although some of this debris comes from Seychelles, a large majority is drifting in from other countries, or boats floating other countries’ flags. This means that even if we managed to run an effective educational programme to eliminate illegal or irresponsible dumping of trash internally, we would still have to deal with the rubbish coming from elsewhere.”

Aside from destroying marine life, marine debris can have a negative impact on a vast array of areas for Seychelles, including on tourism and the economy as our natural beauty is one of our biggest selling points.

Gran Kaz staff plan to continue with similar clean-up activities throughout the year.

Contributed