Editor's Note: As one of the 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world, Seychelles has positioned itself as a champion and defender of the environment. Wavel Ramkalawan, the president of Seychelles, recently talked to CGTN, saying his country is doing its part in the fighting against climate change, and he expects industrialized countries to shoulder more responsibility and take concrete actions.
"The time for talk is over. Now is the time for action," Wavel Ramkalawan, the president of Seychelles, urged industrialized countries to take concrete actions in helping developing countries fight against climate change.
The president of the Indian Ocean Archipelago made the call during an interview with CGTN's flagship talk show "Dialogue."
"In the past, we've heard of amounts of over $100 billion being put to help island states like ours in mitigating climate change and everything else. But this has not happened," said President Ramkalawan.
He believed greed led the developed countries to fail their commitments of the funding for climate change.
"When we continue to import timber – especially expensive timber – rare timber from parts of Africa, when we encourage smuggling, when we continue to give African nations peanuts for their products… but once they reach the industrialized nations, these same products are converted and then resold to Africa for a fortune. All these are elements of which indicate the lack of commitment, the lack of seriousness," he said.
Straddling the western Indian Ocean, Seychelles is known as a sun, sand and sea destination and for its extraordinary biodiversity. /VCG
"When European nations, for example, fish all over the world – and this also applies to other industrialized nations – when they overfish, when they break their quotas simply because we do not have the mechanism for us to keep a close track of exactly what is being removed from the oceans or the forests; when rich people come to Africa, and while we are talking of protecting the endangered species, but they find it a hobby for them to come to shoot elephants, shoot species because for them it's a game. All these things add up, and it's about the world that they are destroying, it's about our planet that they are destroying," said the president.
"For example, the European tuna fishing vessels, that come to fish in our waters in the western Indian Ocean, emit six times more carbon dioxide than Seychelles emits," he added, "It's high time that those who are responsible – the rich countries of this world, the industrialized countries – pay heed to what we, the smaller ones, are saying. We are the victims."
Straddling the western Indian Ocean, Seychelles is known as a sun, sea, and sand destination and for its extraordinary biodiversity.
The small island nation boasts two United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites: the Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve and Aldabra Atoll. It is also home to more than 1,000 species of flowering plants, at least 200 ferns and bryophytes, many of which occur nowhere else. Its endemic fauna is characterized by 12 globally threatened endemic birds, five endemic bat species, six endemic caecilians, five endemic frog species, two freshwater fish, one species of giant tortoise, two sub species of terrapins with more than 20 lizards of which 14 species and subspecies are endemics.
Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan (L) receives his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Victoria, the capital of Seychelles, January 10, 2021. /VCG
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a huge blow to the economy of the island nation, which lies heavily in tourism, the top contributor to its GDP. The country saw revenue from tourism plunge by 61 percent, a loss of $322 million last year, as tourist arrivals dropped by 70 percent.
In January this year, Seychelles started vaccinating its population against COVID-19 with doses from China's Sinopharm vaccine. In March, the Archipelago nation opened up to the world. But visitor numbers have been battered by restrictions to arrest the spread of coronavirus. The country is now looking to diversify its economy beyond tourism into areas such as fisheries.
"And while we are doing our bit, we expect those industrialized countries to come to our help. COVID has taught us this, again, how vulnerable we are. Our tourism industry was basically on its knees, but today we are trying to grapple," said President Ramkalawan.
"After COVID, climate change remains the biggest threat to our mere survival. So please, let us stop talking. Let us stop making promises. Let us move to concrete action. This is my message to the world, and this is a message from an island boy in the middle of the Indian Ocean," he said.
"Dialogue" is a prime time daily English talk show on CGTN. The 30-minute talk show covers a wide range of domestic and international topics, providing a balanced and critical perspective on current affairs and analysis within the framework of cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary comparisons. This is a special collaboration by "Dialogue" and Euronews, a French-based pan-European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. Euronews began broadcasting on January 1, 1993, with the aim of covering world news from a European perspective.
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