The director general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Dr Graziano da Silva, has said he believes Seychelles is taking the lead worldwide on the Blue economy concept, putting the ocean at the centre of the agenda for sustainable development.

Dr da Silva was giving the press a review of discussions held with President James Michel after he paid our head of state a courtesy call yesterday at State House.

He is on a visit of the region and has already been to Madagascar, Mauritius and now Seychelles. Dr da Silva also called on Vice-President Danny Faure.

Holding the recently published book entitled ‘Rethinking the Oceans – Towards the Blue Economy’ written by the Seychellois president and foreworded by himself, Dr da Silva said he has had a long standing relation with the Seychellois president where they met several times to discuss the Blue economy.

President Michel launched this book lastJune to mark World Ocean Day where he said his book tells the story of the Blue Economy to date, how the concept has come onto the world stage, the many aspects it embraces, and what it can offer for all of our future and running through this is the theme of sustainability.

“The ODDs objectives of sustainable developments cannot be achieved if we do not change the way we treat the oceans,” Dr da Silva said, adding the ocean nowadays is a place where we throw everything we do not want and we need to change completely that.

“Oceans can become a source of food to feed our population. They are the place where we have fish stocks that we need to control,” he said.

He commended President Michel for signing and ratifying the regional agreement aimed at combatting illegal fishing.

“We have also invited the president for the launching of food security proposal for the small islands developing states (Sids) later this month in New York during the next United Nations general assembly. FAO is responsible for food security issues in Sids countries,” Dr da Silva noted.

Before meeting President Michel, Dr Graziano held discussions with several other ministers, namely Wallace Cosgrow for fisheries and agriculture and Didier Dogley for environment, energy and climate change with whom he discussed FAO support for the region, Seychelles included.

“One aspect we fully agree on is the need to promote more local production,” he said.

Minister Cosgrow and other high officials of his ministry who were also present during Dr Graziano’s meeting with the president, said the country feels very privileged to have the visit of such a high profile personality as the director general of the FAO, a very important organisation in the UN.

The minister remarked the FAO director general is very impressed with the ongoing projects which have been more than 90 per cent completed.

“FAO is an organisation that has helped and assisted Seychelles a lot especially in terms of technical cooperation where it provided assistance to our agricultural and fishery sectors,” said Mr Cosgrow.

He highlighted ongoing projects where FAO is assisting Seychelles, not really in financial terms but technically. There are generally five projects in the making like agriculture and nutrition; agriculture and forestry; emergency project for the hairy caterpillar and a newly approved project for an inventory of the Seychelles forest.

The organisation is also playing a key role in getting other development partners on board like the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Development Bank of Seychelles (DBS) to assist financially in certain projects.

Dr da Silva will pursue his visit here by visiting agro-products in the country.

Forrás: www.nation.sc