The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Environment David Boyd is urging Fiji to continue and increase its action to protect human rights and the environment.
At the end of his official visit to Fiji, Boyd says that Fiji was acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and associated natural disasters, through no fault of its own.
He says that richer countries should rapidly ramp up financial assistance.
Boyd says that Fiji has introduced several good laws, policies ad programmes aimed at protecting people from climate change and environmental degradation.
He says that there were serious gaps between environmental commitments and implementation on the ground.
Boyd says that pressing environmental commitment challenges include weak waste management, communities lacking sanitation infrastructure and preventing adverse impacts from mining and other industrial activities.
He says that the other challenges include inadequate urban and town planning, and degradation of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.
Boyd says that he witnessed how these environmental problems interfere with a wide range of human rights which include the right to life, health, food, housing, water and sanitation.
He says that in order to fulfil every Fijian right to a healthy environment, the international community must allocate more resources to environmental protection, businesses must obey the law or be punished and individual Fijians must change their behaviour.
Boyd will present his detailed report on his visit to Fiji to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2020.
