By Dana Niland
CJ Contributor
The British Virgin Islands is celebrating Earth Day all month long by creating community awareness through its Seeds of Love initiative.
Various events have included school plantings and discussions, voluntourism planting events, plant donation drive, and a planting at the Ellis Thomas Downs Race Track.
The month-long celebration culminated on Saturday, April 27 with a Seeds of Love Community volunteer planting and beautification activity.
The initiative, launched in 2017 in an effort to replant trees lost as a result of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, operates in partnership with a local nursery and landscape contracting firm, Groundworks B.V.I.
“Our goal for the month was to engage the wider community in the Seeds of Love initiative,” said Sharon Flax-Brutus, Director of Tourism. “I am proud to say that this initiative has blossomed into a forest of opportunities.”
The program is just one of the measures that the B.V.I. Tourism Board is taking to make the tourism industry meaningful for the entire community– last week, as part of Caribbean Journal’s Green Caribbean Awards, the BVITB was named as the winner of the Green Tourism Board of the Year.
“Being recognized as the Green Tourism Board of the Year award inspires us to push even harder to ensure we secure an environmentally sustainable territory for generations to come,” said Flax-Brutus.
— CJ