Special festival starts to celebrate the year’s World Environment Day

A festival has begun at Rasfannu to commemorate the World Environment Day and create awareness about the environment.

The festival was held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. today and would be open the same time tomorrow.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the festival, Enviroment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim said that the most important purpose of such a festival is to protect the environment and deliver it to the future generations and to teach the importance of protecting the environment to school children.

Minister Thoriq said that the theme for this year is Zero Tolerance for the Illegal Trade in Wildlife.

The Minister said that there is fear of extinction on some species of wildlife and one of the most important parts in the protection of the environment is the protection of animals. He said that it is due to the illegal trade of wildlife.

There are a total of 30 stalls at the festival that began today providing awareness on endangered species in the Maldives and how to protect them.

A number of government institutes, schools, private companies and environmental groups are taking part in the two-day festival that began today.