[Source: World Ocean Day / Facebook]

Fiji will soon launch the first tranche of a Blue Bond by August to blue our economy and take on external threats like overfishing and acidification.

Speaking during the UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that this is the world’s burden that Fiji will shoulder in its fight against the protection of the ocean.

But Bainimarama adds that no matter how ambitious or how big and blue Fiji’s commitment may be, our single effort isn’t enough and this is why he is at the conference to call on partners for their support and on the world to follow our lead.

Bainimarama also put the world on notice telling leaders that we face two possible futures, one in which our ocean becomes our greatest opportunity, and the other in which it is degraded beyond recognition.

“To stem the tidal wave of unregulated pollution crashing at our shores, we too look forward to the upcoming negotiations for a global treaty of plastics. And, we totally condemn any threat of ocean dumps of nuclear waste. This would be both catastrophic and horribly traumatic for the Pacific people who still suffer from the nuclear testing inflicted on our region.”

Bainimarama says the ocean is the planet’s healthiest set of lungs yet the least funded of all SDGs.

He stressed that if nothing is done now, the consequences will be inevitable.