Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has revealed the Cabinet yesterday took an important step in protecting the Great Sea Reef.

Bainimarama says they approved the nomination of a significant part of the Reef as a Ramsar site under the convention on Wetlands ensuring its management and protection for future generations.

Bainimarama revealed this while launching the Year of the Reef in Savusavu today adding it’s a global event of relevance to every single person on this earth.

However it has a particular resonance for Fijians because of where we are today – on the edge of one of our most precious national assets, the Great Sea Reef or Cakalevu Reef.

Bainimarama says throughout the world, coral reefs occupy less than one tenth of one percent of the ocean floor.

Yet they are home to a quarter of all known marine species.

Bainimarama says they’re not only sources of food and economic wealth but places of infinite complexity, variety and beauty.

Yet in one of the great tragedies of the modern age, these reefs are slowly dying.

Bainimarama says today’s launch is to issue a plea to the world to summon the collective will to reverse this process.

To save our coral reefs before it’s too late.