On October 1st, 2022, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) hosted a beach clean-up at Malaela Village as part of the International Coastal Cleanup Day 2022 supported by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) through the AFD-funded SWAP project.

Malaela Village is located on the eastern side of Upolu island, Samoa. It is one of the coastal villages which was devastated by the 2009 tsunami. The Samoa Government through MNRE has endorsed the Lotopue-Malaela Mangrove Ecosystem Management Plan 2020 – 2025 in 2020. Strategic and management measures for waste management include:
a. Promote using bio-degradable products within the community;
b. Ban the dumping of waste within the mangrove ecosystem and its coastal areas;
c. Ban drainage of sewage and any other wastewater from households and any other establishments into the mangrove ecosystem.

About 30 volunteers from Maleala village, MNRE and SPREP joined in the celebration to collect nearly 43kg of waste washed up on the shoreline.

Watch this video produced during this event!