IN ORDER to ensure a peaceful and environmentally perfect society, we have to fight for it, says Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources Filimoni Vosarogo.

Speaking at the Basic Diplomacy Training program graduation in Suva yesterday, Mr Vosarogo stressed to the 16 graduates the importance of standing by these ideals.

The eight-month long course was the United Nations Association of Fiji’s first major program which promoted the concept of leadership through diplomacy.

“You are going to have to fight for it in the spaces that you work in,” Mr Vosarogo said.

“We know that without a common voice, without a collective voice, nothing much will be able to be achieved.

“I’m sure that you all understand that in the area where we discuss about climate change, it’s not just climate change alone, I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the triple planetary crisis, climate change is one of them.

“Biodiversity loss is even more a struggle then we have pollution, in the Pacific we are threatened by all of these three very dangerous platforms.”

He commended the program’s humble beginnings to having 500 graduates now.

“Visions can be birthed in the most awkward of places, this one in a car park the at the University of the South Pacific and since then, 500 or so more graduates have graduated out of this Basic Diplomacy program and you 16 are in addition to that number.

“Always remember your beginnings and for the 16 apart from your journey in this diplomacy program, that was your beginning in a spot in a carpark where people would pass by every day, thousands of them in that spot.”

He said the graduates placed themselves in a greater calling.

“Believe me, in that space you find that you graduate from a forum, you start negotiating at the SIDs forum which is the Small Island States development forum and then you go into AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States) a far much bigger forum and whatever’s passed from there we will then we discuss it at the ACP which is the African Caribbean Pacific forum.”