Recent emotive statements by politicians vying for the post of President in both the United States and Seychelles made me realize that no matter how different the Presidential races may be between these two countries, there are indeed some important similarities. At least one topic has produced similar pronouncements from several candidates in both countries. Economic inequality or the personal earning gap has spawned a blame game, but no realistic economic solution. I believe this is because economic inequality is not only a fact in both countries but is also a complex phenomenon which is not very well understood.

Nature Seychelles’ Eric Blais recently returned from the 6th session of the CSO/Private sector forum on sustainable Tuna Fisheries management in the South West Indian Ocean held in Mombasa, Kenya. The meeting was hosted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Tuna Fisheries Alliance of Kenya (TuFAK). Such meetings have been held annually since 2010. This is the third such meeting attended by a Nature Seychelles representative.

Seychelles and the Sustainable Development Goals

I was at the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 where Sustainable Development was hailed by the world community as the silver bullet to solve society’s ills. But somehow Sustainable Development emerged as a construct with a largely terrestrial focus. I also attended the second Earth Summit, Rio+10, in South Africa where the movement to set up Green Economies mysteriously avoided speaking substantively about the oceans, despite our best efforts. Small Island Developing States (SIDS), sitting on small pieces of land seemingly “sea-locked” within large ocean territories, struggled with this concept of the Green Economy. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were launched in 2001 compounded the problem as they were implemented largely using a land-based optic.