With a need to raise awareness on climate change from all angles of the Mamanuca Group, MES has successfully targeted nine resorts staffs from the total of eleven member resorts namely Malolo Island resort, Likuliku Lagoon Resort, Castaway Island Resort, Mana Island Resort, Tokoriki Island Resort , Vomo Island Resort, South seas, Navini Island Resort and Tavarua Island Resort.
The awareness is a significant component of the project that aims to establish an educational platform for resort staffs to learn more about Climate Change, its causes, impacts and effective yet sustainable strategies that will help individuals adapt and mitigate, in every way possible, current and anticipated issues brought about by climate change.
“Having this type of awareness program is a great opportunity for us to learn more and it gives an insight on the changes that is happening around the World and especially on our small islands. Most of the staffs are not aware on the impacts of climate change and not many of us even know what exactly Climate Change is”, this is a statement that is being pointed out by most of the staffs of the respective resorts.
South Sea Island, Navini Island and Tavarua Island resort were the recent resorts visited by MES. Relaying from the NRM (Natural Resource Management Plan) being implemented within communities to build up ways for a sustainable environment, the 2 resorts have also engaged in the NRM activity to also state issues within the island and to find ways to mitigate or adapt to these issues.
“This island used to have more coastal plants along the beach, but now, when it is high tide these plants get drowned by sea water and quickly dies out, causing this sand erosion to occur. We now get sand from the mainland in order to plant more plants”, says Maika, a staff of South Sea Island Resort.
The awareness programs should enable the staff to relate the issues, impacts and effects of climate change to their own surrounding and to plan out management strategies on effectively protecting the natural resources to revive its beauty and biodiversity.
The presentation ended with an activity which is for the staffs to map out places that have been affected and issue that are in place within the resorts. The staffs were divided into 2 groups: Coastal & Sea/Reef.
After the mapping activity, staff members of the respective resorts were asked to point out common issues within the two groups and plan out a management plan for their resort.
The remaining member resorts include Namotu Island Resort and Cloud 9, has been proposed to be targeted in a few weeks’ time to finally end the first round of Climate Change awareness to our 11 member resorts.
In every possible way, MES hopes to empower every resort staff in our 11-member resort to take ownership of the actions they can take to mitigate these environmental changes occurring in their surrounding and implement the actions themselves. MES would like to thank the management of all members for co financing the project and major funder of the Climate change project, the Pacific Regional office at the US Embassy for the financial support making it possible to spread the word on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Mamanuca Region.
