Editorial: All it Takes is Initiative

The pictures tell it all.

Liquor bottles and cans, water bottles, broken shoes, food wrappers and boxes, were among the rubbish collected by locals and tourists along the Wailoaloa Beach yesterday.

Thanks to an initiative by Tourism Fiji, Take 3 for the Sea together with the Norwegian Cruise Line.

Around 50 tourists from the line’s Norwegian Spirit spent part of their holiday helping members of the two organisations picking up rubbish in the area.

The inclusion of tourists sends a strong message to locals and beach goers: take pride in your country’s natural beauty. After all, it is what the tourists are all here for.

While these tourists have gone out of the way to give back to community, what would it take for our own people to do the same?

Last week, after the Drua games at Lautoka’s Churchill Park, two young boys were spotted by the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka picking up rubbish as spectators left the ground.

If these boys, who were by all means tasked by an adult to do pick up trash there, what would it take for the rest of those spectators to do the same?

The pertinent question is: what would it take?

Does it have to take anything to do the right and sensible thing?

Does it have to take tourists, who are on holiday, for us, the very locals, to do the right thing?

Does it have to take two young boys to pick up rubbish after us and only then can we start thinking along those lines?

Key to this is, initiative. It’s the ability to assess and initiate things independently. In other words, it’s doing something for a good cause without being told or convinced.

Pacific Recycling Foundation is changing the way Fijians think about waste management.

It’s teamed up with businesses and targeted schools in their awareness and recycling programmes.

It also works closely with communities like Vunato Settlement in Lautoka, who a majority of the women collect and separate rubbish for a living by training and equipping them with safety measures and equipment.

The above is a testament to how waste management knowledge is imparted in the schools and communities for further replication and improvement.

But it doesn’t have to take a school, or Vunato Settlement or a group of tourists for locals to do right by our communities.

All it takes is initiative and pride in the thought that you leave the world a little better than you found it for the generations to come.

Feedback: ranobab@fijisun.com.fj