Environmental Focus

World Environment Day

Encouraging global awareness and action Singapore is getting into the swing of things on this globally important day with its own Eco Action Day, an environmental awareness campaign to encourage awareness and action at school, in the workplace and home. To do your bit, sign a pledge online at ecoaction.sg and check out the simple things you can do to help, including: • reducing food waste – don’t over-buy or over-order; • finding ways to creatively reuse or recycle household items you no longer need; • setting your air-conditioning to no lower than 25 degrees Celsius (or not using it at all).

World Oceans Day

Conservation action This year’s World Oceans Day is encouraging everyone to do something about plastic pollution and to prevent marine litter. We can all do something to help: participate in a beach clean-up, minimise the plastic we use by refusing plastic bags when shopping (taking our own cloth bags instead), and carrying our own refillable water bottles.

World Sea Turtle Day

Raising awareness The hawksbill turtle, found throughout Asia, is listed as critically endangered. We’ve seen first-hand the efforts to support the population of sea turtles at Telunas Private Island in Indonesia, Banyan Tree resorts in the Maldives, and at smaller resorts on Tioman Island in Malaysia and in the Gili Islands in Lombok, too. These beautiful, peaceful animals face many risks: they get caught up in fishing nets, ingest plastic debris, and are harvested for their shells, which are used for jewellery-making. Also, the eggs they lay on beaches can be eaten by lizards. Let’s hope that increased awareness and egg- hatching initiatives can arrest the population decline.