Africa-Press – Cape verde. An environmental walk to raise awareness about plastic pollution, organised today by the Vitó Project Association is the culmination of a week of activities to mark World Environment Day.
About three hundred children, from pre-school to compulsory basic education in the city of São Filipe, are taking part in the walk, and the choice of this public, according to the executive director of Projecto Vitó, Herculano Dinis, is due to the fact that June is the month in which Children’s Day is also celebrated and the project decided to carry out awareness-raising work focused on the group of children.
According to him, the coordinator of Projecto Vitó’s environmental preservation program mobilized all kindergartens and schools in São Filipe for the environmental walk through the city’s main arteries, carrying the message of the need for preservation and conservation of the environment.
Herculano Dinis advanced that the work started a week ago and is not just about walking, adding that the Vitó Project, in conjunction with the National Directorate for the Environment, carried out awareness-raising work involving all commercial establishments about the motto of the commemoration, which is combating plastic pollution, as well as awareness campaigns in schools with lectures.
“Plastic is a serious problem that affects all parts of the ecosystem and continuous work is needed”, defended the executive director of Projecto Vitó, for whom the topic was well chosen because the problem of plastic is “complex”.
He recalled that Projecto Vitó, in partnership with the University of Cabo Verde, has carried out research work on micro-plastics on beaches and in the sea and that the idea is to carry out continuous work, stressing that since the beginning of May, as part of the preparation of the turtle conservation campaign, this non-governmental organization that has been working in the field of biodiversity conservation and environmental protection has carried out cleaning campaigns on all the beaches on the island of Fogo and is preparing to carry out a campaign on the Ilhéu de Cima with the main objective of removing all plastic from beaches.
Herculano Dinis said that Sopra beach, north of Salinas, is the one that receives the most plastic from the sea due to the northerly current and has a large accumulation of garbage, noting that on the other beaches the garbage is deposited by the floods and people who frequent, adding that in the campaigns carried out this year on the beaches of the island of Fogo, around 10 tons of garbage were removed, of which 60 to 70 percent (%) is plastic.
The campaign on Ilhéu de Cima depends on the vessel, as at the moment only the National Police vessel is available and it does not have the capacity to carry a lot of cargo, said Herculano Dinis, adding that Projecto Vitó is organizing to get a larger vessel or wait for the arrival of his vessel, which is due shortly, to prepare a strong cleaning campaign on the Ilhéu de Cima because, he explained, in addition to collecting, it involves removing garbage and that is only possible with a suitable vessel.
The environmental walk started from the kindergarten of the Women’s Organisation of Cabo Verde (OMCV) in the III Congresso neighbourhood, passing through the Cobom neighbourhood, the roundabout of Enacol to the square of the Presidio in the historic centre of the city.
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