SIGATOKA Sand Dunes National Park manager Jason Tutani is calling on all Fijians to think before they carelessly throw rubbish.
He said despite the sand dunes being a site of extreme importance to Fiji, people did not place much regard to how their actions would impact on one of Fiji’s iconic tourism sites.
Mr Tutani has called for more awareness to be conducted on littering.
“We have a lot of groups that come and volunteer their time to do some work at the park and one of the things they come and do is beach litter patrol,” he said.
“Most of the clean-up campaigns are conducted along the area where the park borders the nearby community.
“Litter campaigns are good because they help us collect all the carelessly discarded rubbish so that we can dispose of them properly.”
Mr Tutani said people needed to be educated on the impacts of littering.
“A good number of us Fijians dispose rubbish carelessly so anti-litter campaign can teach people about what happens when we don’t manage our waste properly.
“When we dump our waste carelessly it becomes a problem to someone else.”
He said careless disposal of rubbish could expose people to various diseases.
“Dumping of rubbish carelessly would mean making the area look unattractive, it would cause the spread of diseases and it is absolutely unhygienic.
“People have the general idea that we have to dispose our rubbish properly but don’t seem to want to do so.
“A lot of awareness needs to be raised and people need to take responsibility and the initiative to practise disposing their waste properly including the three R’s — reduce, reuse and recycle.”
Mr Tutani said more than 140 University of the South Pacific students visited the Sigatoka Sand Dunes National Park last Saturday as part of their semester field trip.
He said their visit was an eye-opener and the park rangers had a few tasks in store for them.
“The students have been visiting the park for a number of years now and as part of their visits, the rangers have added some eco-tasks to complement their learning.
“In this visit, the students joined the rangers to complete three tasks: beach work — building a driftwood exit from the one hour beach walk and a driftwood fence at the Qaro track, tree planting — planting over 60 dry forest tree species at the Driodrio Forest.”
He said they also conducted clean-up campaigns, a litter patrol at the park’s unstable dune at Kulukulu and treehuggers — making tree-huggers in the Mahakoni Forest.
“The enthusiastic students had a busy morning and successfully completed their assigned tasks.
“A big thank you to all of you for the support of the conservation of the national park. It’s always a pleasure having you all visit the park.”
Meanwhile, a group from the Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa also took time out to collect rubbish along the park.
The team collected a total of 35kg of trash along the national park’s beachfront where majority of the waste was plastic bottles and other mixed plastic items.
As part of their corporate social responsibility program, the Team Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa spreads its goodwill around the country by doing voluntary community service.
“Our dune beachfront is much cleaner today thanks to the many hands that volunteered their time to help the rangers keep the national park as pristine as it should be.”
