Speech
Sitiveni Rabuka  ·  2026-09-10 00:22

Palau’s Clean Environment Inspires Reflection

I'm the E-Fund Palau Legacy. So, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the whole issue of how come Palau is so clean. So, we interviewed uh spoke to a few locals uh and uh what they were sharing was very very enlightening. Of course, it didn't take them overnight to keep their country clean. But, they've been through uh several periods of where they have uh worked together with communities, they've worked with NGOs, as well as their litter enforcement itself in order to keep their beautiful country clean. It is such a pristine and untouched, largely untouched, um marine ecosystem as well as their biodiversity on land. And there's a with the cleanliness comes a a sense of peace. You can describe it and I and I believe the you know, the uh the saying that, you know, cleanliness is next to godliness, and that's how you feel that here in in Palau. So, in terms of the why they regard the environment as something spiritual, it is something very connected to their identity. They consider Mother Earth as uh a mother that takes care of them. So, when we were speaking to uh uh some locals, they they mentioned that there was a lot of uh education and awareness uh raised in schools as well as the villages and the communities in order to help with litter prevention. They also have a very very steep fine here. It's US dollars $500 s- fine for littering. So, that's about that's over $1,000 Fijian for littering. So, the deterrents in a lit- a very high litter fine works. But, on the whole, they just uh you if you look at them and how they regard uh the earth, there's a lot of a circular economy also happening. They reuse a lot of what they have. They have a very strong recycling program uh where they uh also have a strong buyback bottle scheme just like our return and earn initiative in Fiji. They also uh in terms of their general waste um they have a a very good system in terms of waste management where most of their waste is reused, recycled, and repurposed. Small population of 16,000 uh but I believe they are well on their way to uh looking after the environment for the future by inculcating this, by teaching this uh to their children uh their young people and the way that they also regard their elders who are the custodians of the environment uh is very much interconnected. How they respect their elders is also how they respect the environment. Because the earth and the environment has been here much longer than us. And that's how they look at their ancestors and their elders as well. That they are wiser. They are more experienced, and they are leaders in their communities. So, uh that's another connection they made in terms of how they um treat their elders. And so, I think this is a lesson for us in Fiji. We have a lot to learn. We have a lot also to be able to instill in our children a great respect for our elders. And we elders too need to treat our children with respect as well. It is um it's mutual. Also, how we need to uh ourselves be the examples to our children not to litter but to keep our Fiji clean and beautiful. Vinaka.