Air Mauritius Encourages Tree Planting to Protect the Environment

June 7, 2008

The Director General of Air Mauritius Manoj Kumar Ajoodha, on Friday announced that as part of its contributions to environmental protection, the airline will contribute to have one tree planted each time its planes take off from Mauritius and from the Mauritius dependency of Rodrigues island.

At the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding at the the Paille-en-Queue Court, in Port Louis the capital between Air Mauritius and the Mauritian Wildlife Association (MWA) in the context of World Environment Day, Ajoodha declared that the objective of the MoU is to formalize the support that the airline gives to the activities of the Association.

Ajoodha added that the project “One Take Off, One Tree” has been developed to encourage not only the personnel of Air Mauritius and members of MWA but also the population to become more active in the preservation of the environment. He indicated that Air Mauritius has joined other countries in the introduction of electronic plane tickets on the 1st June. The aim, he added, will be to reduce the number of trees that are being felled for use in the aviation industry.

Furthermore, Ajoodha disclosed that more facilities will be granted to members of MWA when they travel by Air Mauritius, including cheap air tickets.

Jacques Julienne, executive director of the MWA, stated that the joint project is small but represents one highly symbolic step in the sensitization campaign on environmental protection. He added that the MWA is also very active in the preservation of the paille-en-queue, Rodrigues Warbler and Rodriguan Fody birds.

“One fact that most Mauritians are unaware of is that the country ranks third among countries where indigenous species are on the way to extinction and that some of the species have only a few remaining specimens on the island,” he pointed out.

Julienne invited local enterprises to jump on the MWA bandwagon in the protection of the environment.

Source African Press Agency

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