PRESS RELEASE – 3 March 2017 Port Vila VANUATU

NASI AND FRIENDS OBSERVE WORLD WILDLIFE DAY IN THE WILD.

Today, 3rd March is World Wildlife Day and the UN theme for this year is “Listen to the young voices”. The message of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity can be viewed at: https://www.cbd.int/doc/speech/2017/sp-2017-03-02-wwd-en.pdf

“Listen to the young voices”, is about working across generations and connecting with young people on wildlife conservation and protection. It is about involving youth, as members of communities, in actions that will ensure a sustainable future for wildlife. Where better to do that than in schools.

The VESS (Vanuatu Environmental Science Society) team met up with Nasi the Vanuatu2017 mascot to visit some schools in Erakor village and to talk to the school children about wild animals and plants. The children were asked about what activities we could all do to help protect the wildlife and they have come up with these messages: “Do not litter the environment!”; “Do not cut down trees!” and “Pay more attention to the wildlife”. At Erakor village, they also had a chance to check out some mangrove stands.

Mangrove ecosystems provide goods and services highly valued by the people of the Pacific yet face continuing threats from overharvesting, degradation and land reclamation. This unique ecosystem needs to be well-protected and our children need to be taught that early in schools. Van2017 acknowledges Vatu Molisa at the Department of Environmental Protection & Conservation, for his assistance and for directing us to the mangrove stands.

Nasi is a rainbow lorikeet, one of Vanuatu’s most iconic wild birds. He chatted to Donna, the VESS dugong mascot about life as a wild animal in Vanuatu. Namalao (the life-sized model Scrub Duck or Megapode) shared some insights too. Both the namalao and the dugong are threatened species and their future depends on whether people can help them. Nasi thanks Dr Christina Shaw of VESS for facilitating this meeting of ‘Wildlife Friends’.

Namalao are endemic which means they only live in Vanuatu and they depend on Ni-Vanuatu people to look out for them, so today on World Wildlife day we would like to encourage everyone to think about the wildlife in Vanuatu and do one thing to help today.

Van 2017’ Nasi and VESS’ Donna and Namalao support the preservation of mangroves and encourage the promotional awareness of our endangered and endemic species in schools throughout Vanuatu.

For more information on wildlife and endangered species in Vanuatu, please contact Vatu Molisa at [email protected] or Dr Christina Shaw [email protected]