Aiming to promote the mes­sage of peace in Fiji, the Ambassador and Head of the European Union (EU) Delega­tion for the Pacific, Sujiro Seam was part of a tree planting event at Thurston Gardens in Suva on June 16.

Ambassador Seam said planting a ‘Tree of Peace’ was a very pow­erful symbol at a time of war in Europe.

He said planting the ‘Tree of Peace’ also marked the 100th anni­versary of the end of World War I.

International Tree of Peace is a global initiative that originated in Slovakia in the European Union. The project, created on the occa­sion of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I was initi­ated by Slovak landscape architect Marek Sobola.

The main goal of the project was to promote a message of peace by planting at least one ‘Tree of Peace ‘on every continent.

At the Thurston Gardens, five trees were provided by the Minis­try of Forestry of Fiji where the Gymnostoma vitiense was chosen as the Tree of Peace.

Mr Seam was pleased to join the secretary-general and founder of the international project ‘Tree of Peace’, Marek Sobola, chief ex­ecutive officer of the Suva City Council, Azam Khan and execu­tive director for operations at Fiji’s Ministry of Forestry, Tevita Bulai.

He said: “I was very happy to do it with Servare et Manere- a civil so­ciety organisation from Slovakia to show a team Europe approach. I also contributed to the tree re­planting initiative spearheaded by the Ministry of Forestry of the Fi­jian Government.”

Suva City Council, head of events, communications and properties Ronny Kumaran said “Thurston gardens hosts most of our native species trees and it was ideal to get the tree of peace which is also of native species planted at the gar­den in honour of the campaign”.