 Meantime, the Ministry of Tourism Information Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries celebrated the local environment under the designated theme, Restore Earth. Here's Miguel Morissette. The Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries is joining the world in the commemoration of Earth Day 2021. The theme for this year's observance is, Restore Our Earth. Ecosystems and natural resources are a vital part of St. Lucia's tourism sector. The Permanent Secretary, Donalyn Vite, speaking on the importance of this year's theme, says it is necessary to protect and preserve our green spaces for future generations and to achieve economic sustenance. It's quite impossible for tourism to take place or even to thrive in a world where the earth is not protected and the earth is not respected. And so we are very delighted here in St. Lucia that we have a bounty of natural resources that is really able to allow St. Lucia to put itself out there in the world market for tourism. We have the extent of our driving volcano. We have our underwater features, our dive sites, our wonderful creatures below the sea. We also have our sky rides and our wonderful parks and recreational facilities that really surround us with green spaces and amenities that allows not only visitors but St. Lucia's to recreate and enjoy. Vite says the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to focus on the rehabilitation of green areas and ecosystems. We've been seeing how many of our clients, those persons who have sites and attractions, those persons who have farms and they were taking care of green spaces, how they have gone further and develop it and being able to realize that this downtime has given them a significant opportunity to increase forest cover and also to really take care and nurture and develop various facets that we could use as part of our tourism industry. Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Lenita Joseph says that they provide an opportunity for staff to reflect on the significance of the planet and to celebrate its existence in light of recent natural disasters. We're here at the Ministry of Tourism. We wanted to celebrate Earth Day, we wanted to celebrate the place that we live in and how much we appreciate what this planet does for us. So we're celebrating today so the staff have dressed up in animal print, in floral print or in earth colours just to engender that sense of wellness and thankfulness and appreciation for our environment and also for lunch we're having local food, not processed food but stuff that has been grown here, you know, ground provisions and fish. So we're looking at both land-based and marine-based life and we're having appreciation for it. Joseph says the exercise allowed the Ministry to lend its voice to the importance of protecting the Earth. From the Government Information Service, Miguel Morissette reporting.