 The Facebook photo competition was held in conjunction with World Water Day and World Forest Day 2021 celebrations and formed part of an effort to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our natural resources. To qualify for the competition, persons were required to photograph themselves in an ecosystem and give a brief description of how it contributes to their life. Chief Forestry officer, Orloy Donnelly, highlighted the role these activities play in raising awareness of the increase in deforestation as well as contamination of our natural resources. He commended the participants on their involvement in safeguarding St Lucia's ecosystems. The forest is not only there for our survival. We don't exist in isolation of the wildlife, the other resources that depend on the forest. We all form that network where we depend on each other within that brother ecosystem. So the wildlife as well, they depend on the forest and sometimes when we destroy the forest we destroy wildlife and we also ultimately we would be destroying ourselves. Director of the Water Resources Management Agency Jason Ernest encouraged the participants to continue their efforts in sanitizing the public on the importance of protecting our natural resources. I also see you guys as being ambassadors, so for your households, for your family friends and for your communities to spread the message that we need to continue to protect our resource because it is very finite in St Lucia. It's limited and we should be aware of that. We realize that right now you see that there's a lot of indiscriminate dumping of waste and refuse into our water systems and this is where our water supply comes from. So this is very critical that we protect it and World Forest Day and World Water Day is two of the days where we can look to raise the awareness and sensitize persons as to the importance of what is going on. A first and second place winner was chosen from both the north and south of the island resulting in four winners total. The winners of the World Forest and Water Day competition were awarded prizes that included Samsung tablets and cell phones sponsored by the Southeast Coast Project. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.