EMI KOROITANOA
As the need for a planetary emergency has increased, so has the fleet of eco-activists in different parts of the world like Fiji.
Salanieta Koro and partner Chris Shalendra felt called to adjust to a more eco-friendly lifestyle, which included changing to a plant-based diet and planting trees along My Suva Park.
This is in alignment to the planetary emergency that has been the mantra of world leaders and scientists.
“Never before has there been a need for a state of planetary emergency until now,” Ms Koro explained.
“And that gives us an idea of just how dire the situation is. We decided that we could not, in good conscience, have this knowledge and not play our role to mitigate climate change particularly with regards to carbon emissions and our carbon footprint.”
Ms Koro and her partner decided to walk the talk as they both made the bold effort of turning vegan.
“Switching to a plant-based diet is the most effective way to lower carbon emissions the meat and food industry contributes 15 per cent of global carbon emissions more than air, sea and land transport sector combined.”
The budding climate advocate and her friends have also started composting and recycling plastics as an effort to lower their carbon footprint. “And finally, we decided to plant mangrove seedlings every week to sequester the carbon emissions we still released so that we can achieve carbon neutrality,” Ms Koro added.
She explained My Suva Park is their area of focus for the time being “but we’d be happy to plant mangroves anywhere”.
“This is not just a one-year goal for Chris and me. We will continue to plant mangroves consistently in order to offset our carbon dioxide emissions for the rest of our lives.”
Their target for the end of this year is to influence at least 20 people to convert to veganism and to plant 200,200 mangrove seedlings.