Monday, April 23, 2012

Marine Day Beach Party at Gaya Island


KOTA KINABALU: City Hall is stepping up efforts to make Kota Kinabalu a clean and beautiful city.

“Cleanliness is our top priority,” Mayor Datuk Abidin Madingkir said at the opening of the ‘Marine Day Beach Party’, at the Bunga Raya Resort and Spa yesterday.

The event was held in conjunction with the Marine Awareness month campaign jointly organised by the Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC), Gayana Eco Resort and Bunga Raya Resort and Spa.

Abidin said City Hall has spent a lot of money and efforts to keep the city clean.

“This includes introducing proper waste management for the people living on the islands and coastal areas within the city’s jurisdiction.

“We have been carrying out various intensive cleanliness programmes on the mainland as well as nearby villages on Gaya Island,” he said.

To support the marine awareness programme, the mayor said City Hall would be intensifying enforcement personnel effort to curb the indiscriminate dumping of rubbish like plastic bags into the sea.

“Our campaign to reduce the usage of plastic bags has received tremendous support and we will even consider extending the number of days for the ‘No Plastic Bags’ campaign from the present three days a week,” he said.

And, he also said beautification was another vital agenda of City Hall.

Abidin said they have carried out various beautification projects to improve the landscape of Kota Kinabalu, including planting thousands of trees and flower plants over the last decade.

He said plants were not solely for aesthetic purpose but to also contribute oxygen and function as natural carbon sink.

However, he said most of such efforts were concentrated on land although 75 per cent of the earth is covered in water.

“As Kota Kinabalu boundary covers both land and sea, it is equally important that beautification is not only confined to land but also the sea.

“The sea is also a natural carbon sink and many marine organisms like giant clams are producing oxygen from photosynthesis as well,” Abidin said.

He congratulated MERC for taking the initiative to rehabilitate the marine eco-system by restoring the coral reefs and to repopulate the beautiful giant clams.

Continue reading (incl. Pic) at: Marine Day Beach Party at Gaya Island
.
.